KARACHI: Pakistan equity market which historically performs well during interim tenures has welcomed the nomination of retired Justice Nasirul Mulk as the caretaker prime minster by gaining 64points to close at 42,139 level. After several rounds of talks between opposition leader and incumbent PM, both sides finally disclosed the name after this news, market rallied around 469 points during intraday session but later closed with marginal gain of index level, due to profit taking seen later in the day. Nasirul Mulk served as the 22nd Chief Justice of Pakistan during Jul 2014-Aug 2015 who was nominated as Chief Justice by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He also served as the acting Chief Election Commissioner of Pakistan, from 30 Nov 2013 to Jul 2014. “We believe that timely selection of caretaker PM should bode well for the stock market as history suggests that market has performed relatively well during interim government tenures (provided average return of 17 percent based on observation of 4 setups since 19930”, analyst at Topline Securities commented. During last caretaker setup, market recorded increase of 23 percent while during the interim setup of 2007-2008, market recorded an increase of 15.6 percent. On Monday 139 million shares worth Rs 6.3 billion were traded at the bourse as compared to 109 million shares worth Rs 3.6 billion traded on the last trading day. International oil prices fell around 6 percent as Russia and Saudi Arabia have decided to raise their production level, that dragged Pakistan’s E&Ps scrips to lose around 1?2 percent in their values. OGDC, PPL and POL lost 2%, 1.4% and 1%, respectively. Negative sentiments were witnessed in the cement sector where MLCF (-2.30%), DGKC (-1.45%) and CHCC (-0.70%) lost value to close in the red trajectory. On Friday central bank of Pakistan raised key policy rate by 50 basis points to 6 5 percent that was broadly in line with street expectations. Despite of this favorable event, banking sector performance remained sluggish, where top four banks (HBL, NBP, UBL and MCB) closed negative. Shares of 343 companies were traded on Monday out of which 193 companies’ share value advanced, 128 closed in red while 22 remained unchanged. Analysts expect that the expect market will remain volatile with flows from local institutions and foreigners directing the market. Published in Daily Times, May 29th 2018.