RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday witnessed a rangebound session as investors remained cautious and avoided taking fresh position.

The market opened in negative zone however fresh buying in some stocks supported the market to close on positive note with low volumes.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 41,772.84 points intraday high and 41,508.16 points intraday low level before closing at 41,714.30 points, up 173.75 points or 0.42 percent.

The daily trading volumes stood at 144.845 million shares as compared to 133.556 million shares traded on Monday while total daily traded value on ready counter increased to Rs 3.756 billion against previous session’s Rs 3.236 billion.

BRIndex100 gained 17.1 points or 0.41 percent to close at 4,162.75 points with total daily turnover of 114.463 million shares.

BRIndex30 closed at 15,147.87 points, down 61.39 points or 0.4 percent with total daily trading volumes of 55.581 million shares. Foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $604,845. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 26 billion to Rs 6.636 trillion. Out of total 321 active scrips, 170 closed in negative and 122 in positive while the value of 29 stocks remained unchanged.

PTCL was the volume leader with 15.371 million shares and gained Rs 0.10 to close at Rs 6.60 followed by Dewan Motors that increased by Rs 1.02 to close at Rs 17.70 with 9.589 million shares. WorldCall Telecom closed at Rs 1.34, down Rs 0.01 with 8.634 million shares.

Pak Services and Sapphire Fiber were the top gainers increasing by Rs 84.53 and Rs 78.75 respectively to close at Rs 1211.93 and Rs 1128.75 while Bata Pak and Premier Sugar were the top losers declining by Rs 49.92 and Rs 19.17 respectively to close at Rs 1650.08 and Rs 560.00.

“Another rangebound session was witnessed at the PSX,” an analyst at Arif Habib Limited said. The market opened in the red but soon the momentum changed as the market traded in the green throughout the day after political clarity. Although Investor participation remained sluggish in the main-board on the contrary 3rd tier stocks continued to dominate the volume board.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Fertilizer (up 84.0 points), Commercial Banks (up 64.0 points), Miscellaneous (up 43.9 points), Technology & Communication (up 24.1 points) and Tobacco (up 17.3 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index declined by 73.3 points or 0.89 percent to close at 8,203.45 points with total turnover of 10.120 million shares.

BR Cement Index lost 11.62 points or 0.29 percent to close at 4,007.21 points with 9.265 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index increased by 72.29 points or 0.86 percent to close at 8,430.80 points with 18.877 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 11.3 points or 0.17 percent to close at 6,660.75 points with 6.376 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index inched down by 9.7 points or 0.25 percent to close at 3,805.54 points with 10.543 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 4,710.02 points, up 22.05 points or 0.47 percent with 32.718 million shares.

Muhammad Shuja Qureshi at JS Global Capital said that selective buying helped the 100-index gain 174 points to close at 41,714.

The KSE-100 Index volumes also improved to 66.7 million shares. PTC (up 1.5 percent), DFML (up 6.1 percent), WTL (down 0.7 percent), FCCL (down 2.5 percent) and TPL (up 0.1 percent) were the volume leaders.

News regarding finalization of draft for upgradation of local refineries helped refinery sector stocks make modest gains. While cement stocks also made some initial gains, however, lack of volumes eroded the intraday gains and most cement stocks closed the day in red.