KARACHI: Despite witnessing a volatile day, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) managed to close positive with 72.72 points to reach 42362.87 points level on Thursday.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 42456.53 points and lowest level of 42195.09 points, with the volume of 140 million shares and value of Rs6.04 billion. As many as 357 companies were active; of which 215 advanced, 121 declined and 21 remained unchanged.
BoP was the volume leader with 12.30 million shares, adding Rs0.36 to reach Rs9.60. It was followed by Kohinoor Spining with 10.39 million shares, adding Rs0.19 to end at Rs6.30 and TRG Pak Ltd with 7.35 million shares, gaining Rs0.06 to close at Rs37.10.
The top three gainers were Rafhan Maize with price per share of 7299 (193), Nestle Pakistan with price per share of 12999.50 (99.51) and Wyeth Pak Ltd of 2050.25 (47.90).
The top three losers were Bata (Pak) with price per share of 2900 (-50), Mari Petroleum with price per share of 1501.32 (-25.18) and Faisal Spinning share of 320.67 (-16.87).
Earlier, the stocks started day on positive note and added 166 points to reach 42456 points level in early trading. The Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed fluctuation and shed most of the early gains as the benchmark 100-index gained 23 points to reach 42313 points level till midday.
On Wednesday, bearish sentiments dominated at the PSX as KSE 100-index went down by 376 points and closed at 42,290 points due to growing political uncertainty.
Sectors dragging down the index were commercial banks that shed 84 points, oil and gas exploration companies, which took away 61 points, cements 48 points, and power generation and distribution slashed 29 points.
A rally was witnessed in the fertilizer sector as fertilizer numbers for the month of August-17 showed a growth of 36% YoY. FFC (up 2.4%), FATIMA (1.2%), FFBL (1.5%) and EFERT (1.1%) cumulatively contributed 43 points to the index gain.
Due to investors cautious stance, trading activity remained flat as daily volumes on the ready counter clocked in at 147m/shares, up by 1% DoD, whereas trade value down by 26% to Rs5.4b/USD52m. Stocks that controlled the activity were KEL (9.3%), WTL (9.0%), BOP (8.0%), TRG (7.4%) and KOSM (5.4%) which cumulatively contributed 39% of total volumes.
Scrips of total 382 active companies participated in the session of which 284 closed in decline, 97 in advance while 21 remained unchanged.
