KARACHI: Benchmark KSE-100 index witnessed another volatile session Wednesday with intraday movement of 932 points while the KSE-100 Index closed positive by gaining 287 points to finally settle at 38,792 points levels. Financials lead the point table contributing collectively over 170 points in the session. DG Khan Cement Co Limited (DGKC) gaining 5 percent, Engro Polymer & Chemicals Limited (EPCL) gaining 5 percent and Attock Refinery Limited (ATRL) gaining 4.8 percent recovered from their day’s lows and traded at their respective upper limits, further boosting investors confidence. Murtaza Jafar of Elixir Securities expects market to face immediate resistance around 39,200-39,700 levels. On the economic front, Pakistan’s trade deficit for September stood at $2.703 billion, down $272 million from August when the trade deficit clocked in at $2.975 billion. Moreover, Pakistan has been warned by International Monetary Fund (IMF) not to underestimate the economic risks from its China-funded building projects as they urged it to carefully examine its relationship with Beijing. Furthermore, commercial banks, cements and oil & gas exploration sector emerged as top gainers. Mixed sentiment was seen in the banks where top banks HBL (+1.4%), MCB (+4.1%) and UBL (+2.9%) closed positive. In the cement sector, DGKC (+5.0%) closed in the upper circuit while LUCK (+2.0%) and FCCL (+3.0%) closed near the upper limit on the back of reports that the domestic cement consumption bounced back in September after two months of lackluster growth, registering a double digit hike compared to last year. Wednesday’s major heavyweights namely HBL (+1.4%), OGDC (+1.0%), ENGRO (+1.0%), MCB (+4.1%), POL (+0.9%), UBL (+2.9%) and FFC (+1.0%) cumulatively contributed 206 points. Traded volumes slightly decreased by 11 percent day-on-day (DoD) to 199 million shares while value traded decreased to $ 54 million. Top volume stocks were TRG and Unity Foods. An equity analyst Danish Ladhani expects investor’s sentiment to remain choppy. Therefore, the KSE100 performance shall remain under pressure along with selling pressure from foreign investors. Published in Daily Times, October 11th 2018.