KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Friday closed almost flat after recovering intra-day losses of 390 points.
At the end of trading, the benchmark KSE 100-share Index gained 14.52 points or 0.04% to settle at 38,251.04.
In the morning, the bourse opened down and fell steadily before investors started cherry-picking, which helped the benchmark index recover from lows. Despite that, the market ended first session of the day below 38,000 points.
The start of the second session saw robust buying on the back of news that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) would provide assistance of $3 billion to Pakistan to bridge the financing gap. The index staged a smart recovery and climbed over 500 points, but volatility still prevailed and dragged it down, wiping off almost all of the gains made in the session.
Volumes in Friday’s trading session decreased 5% to 130 million shares while traded value increased to $48 million given strong participation from financial institutions and FTSE rebalancing.
Top volume leaders of the day were K-Electric (+0.5%), Pak Elektron (+0.4%), Engro Polymer (+0.03%), The Bank of Punjab (+0.4%) and Lotte Chemical (-0.1%).
Overall, trading volumes decreased to 130.4 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 136.7 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs6.7 billion.
Shares of 314 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 151 stocks closed higher, 139 declined and 24 remained unchanged.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 17.35 million shares, gaining Rs0.03 to close at Rs6.02. It was followed by Pak Elektron with 14.4 million shares, gaining Rs0.11 to close at Rs27 and Engro Polymer with 8.1 million shares, gaining Rs0.01 to close at Rs39.21.
