RECORDER REPORT
KARACHI: A mixed trend persisted on Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Thursday. The benchmark KSE-100 index kept on oscillating between 48,933.71 points intra-day high and 48,646.20 points intra-day low level.
The index closed at 48,713.63 points with a modest gain of 8.64 points.
Trading activity remained low as daily trading volumes decreased to 329.241 million shares as compared to 403.805 million shares traded Wednesday. The market capitalization increased by Rs 3 billion to Rs 9.754 trillion. Out of total 420 active scrips, 211 closed in positive, 182 in negative while the value of 27 stocks remained unchanged.
Foreign investors remained net sellers withdrawing $3.3 million from the bourse.
Aisha Steel Mill was the volume leader with 24.023 million shares. It gained Rs 0.67 to close at Rs 17.71 followed by Dost Steels that increased by Rs 0.35 to close at Rs 13.28 with 21.074 million shares. K-Electric lost Rs 0.10 to close at Rs 9.29 with 13.040 million shares.
Ghandhara Industries and National Refinery were the top gainers with Rs 40.04 and Rs 27.90, respectively to close at Rs 841.00 and Rs 595.42. Unilever Foods and Philip Morris Pak were the top losers with Rs 100.00 and Rs 90.00, respectively to close at Rs 5,900.00 and Rs 2,660.00.
Zeeshan Afzal at Insight Securities said the index traded rangebound with drops in overall volume as the stakeholders wait for clearance on political issues. Fertilizer sector remained in action upon anticipation of government allowing exporting urea.
Nabeel Haroon at JS Global Capital said that volatility persisted in the market as the index traded between an intra-day high of +229 points and intra-day low of -63 points to close slightly in the green with net gain of 8.64 points. Recovery was seen in the fertilizer sector, as the sector gained 0.5 percent with FFC and EFERT top performer in the sector and gained 1.73 percent and 1.67 percent respectively. Slight recovery was witnessed in the E&P sector, as crude oil prices traded comfortably above $53/bbl level during the course of the day. OGDC (+0.18 percent) was the major index mover from this sector.
