Daily Times

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed a second back-to-back positive but low-volume session on Thursday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining 127.99 points (+0.28 percent) to close at 45,083.04 points.

The market opened on a positive note and remained in the green territory throughout the session. However, the market remained dull with regard to volumes as well as the number of companies whose share prices suffered in the KSE All Index remained higher than the companies whose share prices made gains, despite an overall positive session.

According to experts, the market remained positive as cut-off yields in the treasury-bill auction significantly declined which were in accordance with the latest monetary policy announcement. The sentiment was further fuelled as the State Bank of Pakistan is confident over the revival of the $6 billion extended fund facility of the International Monetary Fund.

The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 224.8 points, showing an intraday high of 45,179.8 points and a low of 44,955 points, which was the last day’s closing point. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 32.7 points (-0.11 percent) to close at 30,760.87 points, while KMI All Share Islamic Index gained 56.78 points (+0.26 percent) to close at 22,254.5 points.

A total of 343 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 137 closed up, shares of 176 closed down while shares of 30 companies remained unchanged. Out of 96 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 47 closed up, 43 closed down and six remained unchanged.

The overall market volumes increased by 36.28 million to 173.59 million shares. Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index increased by 22.92 million to 89.84 million shares. The number of total trades decreased by 1,877 to 81,861, while the value traded increased by Rs1.21 billion to Rs6.57 billion. Overall, market capitalisation decreased by Rs6.63 billion.

Among scrips, TRG topped the volumes with 19.12 million shares, followed by HUMNL (15.24 million) and UNITY (11.71 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included TRG, HUMNL, UNITY, WTL and CNERGY, which formed around 37 percent of total volumes.

In terms of rupee, PSEL remained the top gainer and witnessed an increase of Rs41 per share, closing at Rs1,650 whereas the runner-up was ARPL, the share price of which climbed up by Rs36.17 to Rs586.17. COLG remained the top loser in terms of rupee and witnessed a decrease of Rs66 per share, closing at Rs2,400, followed by PAKT, the share price of which declined by Rs51.89 to close at Rs1058.11 per share.

The sectors taking the index towards north were technology & communication with 63 points, power generation & distribution (28 points), commercial banks (22 points), miscellaneous (21 points) and oil & gas exploration companies (17 points). The most points added to the index were by TRG which contributed 61 points followed by HUBC (23 points), PSEL (21 points), MARI (19 points) and ABL (17 points).

The sectors taking the index towards south were tobacco with 16 points, investment banks/ investment companies/ securities companies (12 points), automobile assembler (10 points), fertilizer (6 points) and engineering (4 points). The most points taken off the index were by PAKT which stripped the index of 16 points, followed by FFBL (13 points), COLG (12 points), DAWH (10 points) and PPL (6 points).