KARACHI: Snapping the prolonged losing streak, the benchmark KSE-100 Index in early trade till 11:27am on Wednesday unexpectedly gained 226.75 points or 0.68 percent to reach 33415.52.
Meanwhile, the High and Low were 33464.70 and 33188.77 while the total volume traded in the market was 48,890,970 with value of 3,531,339,551.
At the closing of the last week, it was expected by analysts that the market will take cue from February inflation data this week, although the benchmark Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100-share Index closed lower overall 1.1 percent during the last week due mainly to future contracts rollover.
The consumer price index was expected to ease to very low levels of 3.8 percent for Feb-15, which should generate hopes of a sharper than 50 basis points cut in discount rate in the March monetary policy announcement, and can trigger positive momentum at the bourse.
There was a lack of any trigger in the market, however, inflation data at the beginning of the new week might set pace the market’s pace. Rollover of future contracts and net foreign selling of $9.6 million kept the investors sentiments bearish, despite strong corporate announcements, they said.
In the last session, bears dominated the bourse as investors ignored lower Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers and opted for profit taking and heavy institutional offloading which dragged the benchmark index down drastically.
On Monday, the market volume decreased to 159.641 million shares traded as compared to 208.136 million shares traded in previous session. The overall market capitalisation declined to Rs 7.519 trillion as compared to Rs 7.615 trillion of previous session.
