The Pakistan Stock Exchange's benchmark 100-share index managed to close Tuesday in the green, recovering from a bout of selling on the back of interest in undervalued stocks.

The KSE-100 Index gained 13.5 points to close at 48,534, up 0.03 per cent. 87.7 million shares of indexed companies changed hands in the Tuesday session, with a total worth of nearly Rs7.7 billion.

The market had remained range-bound in the early hours of trading. However, as the second half of the trading session picked up, traders resorted to profit-taking, pushing the index to the day's low of 48,147 points.

Subsequently, however, the market adopted an upwards trajectory as investors cherry-picked stocks at lower valuations to help the index slightly above yesterday’s close.

Overall, 228.6 million shares were traded on the exchange, with a total value of Rs10.7bn. 371 scrips were traded on the exchange, of which 162 gained in value, 201 declined, while 8 remained unchanged.

Volumes were led by commercial banks, with engineering, cement, power generation and chemicals rounding off the top five sectors traded.

Volumes were led by:

• Aisha Steel Mill: 17m shares traded (-0.84pc);

• K-Electric: 14.4m shares traded (-0.31pc);

• Power Cement Ltd: 14.4m shares traded (-4.45pc);

• Sui North Gas: 11.1m shares traded (+4.08pc); and,

• B.O.Punjab: 10m shares traded (+3.18pc)

Commenting on the session, Nabeel Haroon, an analyst at JS Global, said the market saw continuing volatility as volumes stood low.

"Moving forward, we expect volatility to prevail in the market; however long-term sentiments remain positive," he said.

Analyst Fahad Qasim was of the view that the selloff was triggered by “brokers clearing out clients’ outstanding debit balances," but he said bullish investors turned momentum around as they started cherry-picking stocks at cheaper valuations.