RECORDER REVIEW

KARACHI: Futures trading at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed a sharp spike during the outgoing week despite a broadly range bound equity market.

The robust futures activity coincided with a notable narrowing of the futures spread to 941 bps, which contracted to 5.99 percent from 15.39 percent a week earlier.

The average daily turnover in the futures market jumped 217 percent week-on-week to 427.6 million shares, compared to 134.8 million a week earlier. The total traded value also climbed 165 percent to Rs25.3 billion, up from Rs9.5 billion previously.

Analysts said investors were increasingly turning to the derivatives market to hedge positions and take advantage of volatility in key sectors such as cement, engineering and technology.