Daily Times

The benchmark KSE 100 Index, which opened on a positive note, soon fell in the grip of bears but managed to recover losses in the late hours.

Indices opened higher in continuation of yesterday’s bullish performance by gaining 330 points in the initial hours of the trading session. However, the KSE 100 fell flat on its face in later hours, gained merely 81 points by the end of the session and closed at 35,358-mark.

Adding 331.31 points, the KSE 100 Index marked its intraday high at 35,608.77. The bourse then took a plunge and recorded its intraday low at 35,243.22 after shedding 34.24 points. It closed slightly positive at 35,358.31. The KMI 30 Index appreciated by 252.62 points to settle at 57,812.74, while the KSE All Share Index closed higher by 90.19 points at 25,281.96.

Of the 91 traded companies in the KSE100 Index 52 closed up 38 closed down, while 1 remained unchanged. Total volume traded for the index was 169.45 million shares. The overall trading volumes improved significantly from the previous session and were recorded at 308.48 million.

Sectors that primarily dragged the index lower included power generation and distribution shedding 34.29 points, banking 3.86 points and engineering 5.05 points. However, sectors that propped up the index to close in the green were fertilizer gaining 27.50 points, automobile assembling 21.29 points and chemical 19.73 points.

The most points added to the index was by ENGRO which contributed 32 points followed by MCB with 32 points, SNGP with 21 points, INDU with 14 points and COLG with 9 points.

Worldcall Telecom, Maple Leaf Cement Factory Limited and Lotte Chemical Pakistan Limited remained the top traded stocks of the day. The scripts had exchanged 81.71 million, 15.28 million and 12.72 million shares, respectively.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar said that the Government of Pakistan with the help of Prime Minister of Turkey has amicably resolved the issue of Karkey Power Plant which helped government got a waiver of Rs 200 billion. The economic affairs minister while addressing a press conference added that after this resolution, the country’s current account deficit has shrunk by 64%.He said that the PTI government has reduced the volume of external debt, as last year the government paid almost US$10bn against external debts.