KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange became flat till midday after shedding the early gains as the benchmark 100-index gained 13 points to reach 45473 level on Friday.
The stocks started the last trading day of the week on positive note and added 151 points to reach 45612 level in early trading.
On Thursday, the stock market closed lower in another bearish session as investors continued to stay on the sidelines. At close, the benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded a decrease of 257.47 points or 0.56% to settle at 45,460.87.
Nearly 9.3 million shares of the bank were traded in the regular market at the upper price limit while a remarkable activity was seen in the off-market where about 49 million shares changed hands at an average of Rs11.76 per share, around 11% premium over the day’s closing price.
Crescent Steel (-4.8%) hit the lower price limit after announcing poor results and Hub Power (-1%) closed lower on unexciting earnings.
Following the market’s close, Lucky Cement (+0.5%) announced its earnings that came slightly below expectations, but more importantly the company disclosed plans for a brownfield expansion of 2.6 million tons per annum at its Pezu Plant, scheduled to come on line by the end of 2019.
Overall, trading volumes decreased to 170 million shares compared with Wednesday’s tally of 181 million. Shares of 393 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 147 stocks closed higher, 228 declined while 18 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs7.2 billion.