KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded an increase of 303.61 points or 0.71% to settle at 42,808.66.
Earlier, the index opened on a positive note, but dipped soon after. However, the trend reversed as investor interest drove the market up.
Engro Corp (+2.5%), Lucky Cement (+2.6%) and Dawood Hercules (+3.1%) stood out as top contributors to the benchmark index, cumulatively adding 117 points.
However, amidst lack of news flow and absence of any meaningful corporate result announcements during the day, the wider market activity was below par as only $54 million worth of shares changed hands on the KSE All-share Index while on the KSE-100 index 77 million shares were traded, the lowest activity in almost two weeks.
Overall, trading volumes decreased to 153.8 million shares compared with Friday’s tally of 203 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs6.7 billion.
Shares of 375 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 206 stocks closed higher, 160 declined while nine remained unchanged.
Trust Investment Bank was the volume leader with 11.1 million shares, gaining Rs0.29 to close at Rs2.70. It was followed by Pak Elektron with 10 million shares, gaining Rs1.10 to close at Rs40.62 and Unity Foods with 7.9 million shares, losing Rs0.27 to close at Rs33.56.
Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs305 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.
