Daily Times

In intraday trading, Pakistan’s KSE-100 lost 680 points before stocks recovered strongly to enable the index close modestly up on Tuesday.

The KSE-100 gained 53.73 points, or 0.12pc, by Tuesday’s end, to close at 43,883.08. Early in the day, the index continued its downward trend from the previous day, dropping as low as 43,150 by the middle of trading. As a result of cherry-picking across the board, the market ended marginally higher with both the value and volume of shares traded rising dramatically.

Investor confidence remained low due to worries about an increase in the electricity bill. Amid ongoing talks between the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), there are growing concerns.

According to sources, the government was unable to persuade the Fund of its ability to follow the circular debt management plan aimed to stop the growing circular debt during technical level meetings.

The benchmark KSE-100 index was saved from the negative zone on Tuesday by the banking (263.77), cement (73.59), and engineering sectors (20.38 points).

From 226.58 million shares on Monday to 404.91 million on Tuesday, the all-share index’s volume jumped considerably Stock trades surged dramatically as well, reaching Rs15.6 billion from Rs8.27 billion on Monday, a value of Rs16 billion.

WorldCall Telecom had the most shares with 51.14 million, Telecard Limited had 27.58 million, and Treet Corp had 21.78 million.

On Tuesday, shares of 535 firms were traded; 217 saw their prices rise, 302 saw their prices fall, and 16 saw their prices stay the same.