KARACHI: The benchmark KSE-100 Index at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) recovered its early losses on Tuesday to close at 39,603 points level gaining 442.27 points on the back of strong buying interest in financials. An equity analyst at Trust Securities said the day started with slight negativity but the market was seen recovering previous day’s lost points and finally closed in the green zone. Some positivity also came after PSX CEO confirmed that the PSX is in the process for acquiring a brand-new trading system from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. As political and economic pressure started to ease off a bit investors started taking interest in the market, he added. United Bank Limited (UBL) gaining 2.28 percent, Habib Bank Limited (HBL) gaining 2.75 percent and MCB Bank Limited (MCB) gaining 3.15 percent collectively contributed 146 points towards the day’s gain. Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of November-1208 stood at +6.5 percent YoY below street expectations of 7.27 percent. Lower than expected reading was attributable to “Communication & Apparatus” segment where prices remained flat MoM. “We expect Financials to lead the gains on the back of strong buying momentum from Local Institutions as the Index is now all set to test resistance around 40,200-40,500 levels”, said Murtaza Jafar, an analyst at Elixir Research. The major sectors – financials, energy and fertilizers – cumulatively contributed +389 points towards the close where MCB (+3.2%), PPL (+2.2%), HBL (+2.7%), HUBC (+2.7%), OGDC (+2.4%), POL (+2.0%), BAHL (+1.3%), UBL (+2.3), EFERT (+2.8%) and ENGRO (+1.3) closed in the positive zone. Cement sector was the major dampener where LUCK (-1.4%) and DGKC (-2.8%) closed in the red zone. Trading activity slightly improved as average daily traded value stood at $81 million, up 71 percent while volume stood at 196 million shares, up 19 percent. Furthermore, major contribution to total market volume came from MLCF (-4.7%), KEL (+2.2%) and BOP (+0.5%). An equity analyst Maaz Mulla expects market to remain choppy and volatile on the back of serious economic concerns where he contemplates increase in CAD, currency devaluations, IMF stringent terms and conditions, mowing down of development budgets, inflationary pressure with further cut down in the growth rate. The advance to decline ratio in the broader market remained in the favor of bears where total 345 scrips participated, 217 of them advanced, 109 declined while, 19 scrips remained unchanged. Published in Daily Times, December 5th 2018.