Daily Times

KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Tuesday failed to sustain intraday gains of record 50,000 levels as selling pressure in index heavy names kept the market under pressure.

Pakistan stock market’s main KSE 100 index went up by 92.74 points or 0.19 percent to close in the green at 49,629.40 points. Nabeel Haroon of JS Research said volatility prevailed in the market as the index, in spite of repeated attempts, failed to sustain above 50,000 levels as investor interest was seen in the cement sector as the sector gained to close (0.34percent) higher than its previous day close.

Fertilizer sector extended its previous day gain on the back of the news that Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) has authorized continuation of the fertilizer subsidy scheme for fiscal Year 2016-17 (FY17) and has also permitted export of 0.3 million tones of urea fertilizer till 28th April, 2017 without the subsidy that is being extended for local urea sales.

Profit taking was witnessed in Honda Atlas scrips that fell by 3.49 percent as skeptical investors came in to book their profits a day before the automobile assembler’s third quarter’s financial result announcement. “Pakistan Equities closed in the green after volatile trading as the benchmark KSE100 Index fell just short of 31 points of achieving a record close of the 50,000 level. Market opened higher and KSE100 Index did cross the 50,000 level intra-days in early trade however due to the selling pressure in index heavy names kept the upside in check as savvy investors grabbed the opportunity to book profits in recent gainers,” said Faisal Bilwani, an analyst at Elixir Research.

Pakistan State Oil (PSO) gaining by 5 percent surprised many with late aggressive buying pushing the stock to hit upper price limit on reported local interest, while Engro Foods (+3.1 percent) traded at its highest volumes since September 2016 and closed at a new record level after yesterday’s news of the provincial regulatory body imposing fines that most likely ended the concerns of a much worse outcome.

On Tuesday, shares of 432 companies were actively traded at the bourse of which shares of 208 companies ended in the green, 206 in the red, while 18 remained unchanged. Volumes were led by KEL with 71 million shares traded, other volume leaders were Aisha Steel Mills 48 million, Japan Power 18 million, Dost Steel 18 million and Pak Elektron 17 million.