Daily Times

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed another volatile session on Friday, especially in the second half, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining 89.27 points (+0.19 percent) to close at 47,295.8 points.

The market opened on a positive note and remained positive throughout the first half. However, the second half of the session witnessed profit-taking and the session remained volatile. However, the market managed to close the session in the green zone after switching between the red and green zones.

The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 424.3 points, showing an intraday high of 47,608.4 points and a low of 47,184.1 points. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index gained 73.56 points (+0.23 percent) to close at 32,256.94 points, while All Share Islamic Index gained 59.68 points (+0.26 percent) to close at 22,957.86 points.

A total of 389 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 185 closed up, shares of 181 closed down while shares of 23 companies remained unchanged. Out of 97 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 46 closed up, 49 closed down and two remained unchanged. The overall market volumes decreased by 92.07 million to 469.87 million shares. Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index were 150.39 million shares. The number of total trades increased by 794 to 167,750, while the value traded decreased by Rs0.07 billion to Rs15.94 billion.

Among scrips, WTL topped the volumes with 41.91 million shares, followed by GGL (36.43 million) and TELE (24.19 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include WTL, GGL, TELE, FNEL and HASCOL, which formed around 31 percent of total volumes. The sectors propping up the index were oil and gas marketing companies, fertilizer, cement, food and banks. The index was let down by the automobile, chemical, and engineering sector.

According to experts, the market witnessed profit-taking in the second session which erased most of the gains made during the first half. They said that there is no negative news in the market and it may strengthen its gains during the next week. They said that increase in international coal prices caused profit-taking in the sector, as the sector led the rally in the first half.