KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange landed in the green on Tuesday as the benchmark KSE-100 index gained 523 points, or 1.14 per cent, by the close of the trading session to reach 46,533 points.
The index floated around 46,150 points, up almost 140 points from the opening of the session, for the greater part of the session. However, the benchmark showed an upswing in the second half, testing the day’s high at 46,624 points near the close of the session. The market’s opening at 46,010 points remained the day’s low.
Trading activity was led by the engineering sector, with 39.7 million shares traded during the session. The textile and the chemical sectors followed with 29.7m and 24.0m shares traded respectively.
Earlier, the stocks opened keeping bullish note of previous day and gained 158 points to reach 46168 points level in early trading. The PSX remained bullish till midday after adding 248 points to take the tally to 46259 points level.
On Monday, positive momentum persisted at the PSX as index gained another 98 points and closed at 46,010 points. HBL (down 5%) closed at its lower circuit on account of rumours of any penalty imposed on the bank due to compliance issues in its New York branch. LUCK (down 0.50%) posted its financial results for FY17 in which the company reported an EPS of Rs42.34 and a dividend of Rs12/share, in line with market expectation. FFC (down 4.50%) shed points as financial results for 1H2017 announced by the company did not meet investor expectations.
Top 5 index point performers were SNGP (up 4.6%), ENGRO (2.2%), OGDC (1.9%), MARI (3.3%) & HUBC (up 1.4%), adding 168 points; while HBL (down 5%), FFC (4.5%), PPL (1.3%), UBL (0.8%) & INDU (2.2%) held back 282 points (out of which HBL/FFC was 181/52points).
Participation sustained Friday’s levels with volumes at 319m shares (down 3% d/d) while traded value shed 11% to Rs18.8b/$178m. ANL led the volume with 33 million shares of the textile stock changing hands.
