KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed a positive start to the month, with the KSE-100 Index closing the session on Tuesday in the green zone amid high turnover.
On the economic front, the government on Monday announced its decision to keep prices of petroleum products unchanged for October 2019. Working of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) shows that the base price of petrol has come down 3pc to Rs69.78, dealers’ margin in per litre price of petrol has been cut down from Rs9.90 to Rs9.83, while the remaining amount, under the head of additional taxation, has been increased by 6.93pc. Tax constituent in the petrol price now stands at 30pc of Rs113.24 (current rate).
Moreover, as per reports, the government has failed to meet a condition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and missed the first-quarter tax target of Rs1.071 trillion by a wide margin of around Rs120 billion. The collection for July-Sept was Rs955 billion (13.5pc higher than the last year).
The KSE-100 Index started the day in the negative territory, losing 76.74 points to mark an intraday low of 32,002.11. The index then took the opposite route and gained 211.54 points to record its intraday high of 32,290.39. It finally closed higher by 175.47 points at 32,254.32. The KMI-30 Index gathered 394.93 points to end at 51,545.75, while the KSE All Share Index appreciated by 72.64 points, settling at 23,500.24.
The cement sector (+64.61 points), power generation and distribution sector (+34.23 points) and banking sector (+31.52 points) helped the index close in the green zone. Among the companies, Lucky Cement Limited (LUCK +20.17 points), Hub Power Company Limited (HUBC 19.05 points) and Fauji Cement Company Limited (FCCL +16.16 points) remained the top positive contributors to the index.
The overall trading volumes were recorded at 180.73 million with shares worth Rs49.99 million traded on Tuesday. K-Electric Limited (KEL +6.20pc) topped the volume chart with 22.89 million shares exchanged, followed by Unity Foods Limited (UNITY +3.96pc) and Fauji Cement Company Limited (FCCL +7.39pc) with 19.43 million shares and 14.73 million shares exchanging hands respectively.
The Power Cement Limited (POWER +4.83pc) recorded earnings per share of Rs0.55 for FY19 (Rs0.32 in FY18), Nishat Chunian Power Limited (NCPL -1.33pc) declared an EPS of Rs9.30 for FY19 (Rs9.27 in FY18) and The Searle Company Limited (SEARL +3.48pc) posted an EPS of Rs12.44 for FY19 (Rs16.51 in FY18).
