Daily Times

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) managed to close in green for the fifth straight session on Tuesday amid expected revival of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan programme, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining 38 points (+0.09 percent) to close at 43,078.14 points.

The market opened on a sharp positive note and remained positive for around the first three hours of the session.

However, profit-taking activity was witnessed and the market took a dip but it recovered soon and turned to positive again.

The indices remained volatile during the last half an hour trading; however, the benchmark index managed to close on a positive note.

Finance Minister Miftah Ismail’s statement about the expectation of an IMF staff level agreement in the current month gave a boost to the investors’ confidence. Moreover, Pakistani rupee appreciated for the third straight session, which also left positive impacts on the bourse.

The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 320.82 points, showing an intraday high of 43,339.22 and a low of 43,018.40 points. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 31.75 points (-0.11 percent) to close at 29,310.51 points, while KMI All Share Islamic Index gained 6.83 points (+0.03 percent) to close at 21,104.91 points.

A total of 362 companies traded shares in the stock exchange compared to 360 a session earlier. Out of traded companies, shares of 159 closed up, shares of 178 closed down while shares of 25 companies remained unchanged.

A total of 91 companies traded shares in the KSE-100 Index, out of which 33 closed up, 55 closed down and three remained unchanged.

The overall market volumes increased by 97.88 million to 285.35 million shares. Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index increased by 41.18 million to 122.47 million shares.

The number of total trades decreased by 2,755 to 88,800, while the value traded increased by Rs1.27 billion to Rs7.39 billion. Overall market capitalisation decreased by Rs7.73 billion.

Among scrips, SILK topped the volumes with 71.62 million shares, followed by PIBTL (35.62 million) and PRL (21.12 million).

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included SILK, PIBTL, PRL, PAEL and WTL, which formed around 55 percent of total volumes.

In terms of rupee, SAPL remained the top gainer and witnessed an incr ease of Rs36.99 (+4.62 percent) per share, closing at Rs836.99.

The runner-up remained ISIL, the share price of which climbed up by Rs35.04 (+7.4 percent) to Rs508.85. RMPL remained the top loser in terms of rupee and witnessed a decrease of Rs100 (-1.02 percent) per share, closing at Rs9,700, followed by MEHT, the share price of which fell by Rs65.62 (-7.5 percent) to close at Rs809.38 per share.

The sectors taking the index towards north were power generation & distribution (64 points), oil & gas exploration companies (57 points), technology & communication (22 points), automobile assembler (20 points) and fertilizer (16 points). most points added to the index were by HUBC (67 points), MTL (28 points), SYS (26 points), POL (25 points) and OGDC (17 points).

The sectors taking the index towards south were cement (68 points), commercial banks (28 points), pharmaceuticals (10 points), and textile composite and glass & ceramics (9 points each).

The most points tak en off the index were by LUCK (47 points), MCB (19 points), HMB (10 points), and SEARL and EFERT (9 points each).