KARACHI: After a massive gain of 6.9pc in four trading sessions starting the day prior to the announcement of Panamagate case and ignoring the slight erosion on Tuesday, the KSE-100 index continued to consolidate below the 50,000 level on Wednesday.

The benchmark index witnessed range-bound activity, moving between the intraday high of 169 points and low of 140 points, due to lack of additional triggers and the usual concerns that plague the rollover week.

The growing noise on the political front also kept investors on their toes. Mutual funds however continued their buying spree, which led the index to close with marginal gains of 42.34 points (0.09 per cent) at 49,827.51.

The volume decreased to 323 million shares from 381m shares a day ago. The trading value also shrank to Rs16.8 billion from Rs19.0bn.

The major drivers of the market were the several big-ticket corporate result announcements. Investors’ interest remained skewed towards the automobile sector, following robust earnings reported by Indus Motors and Pak Suzuki Motor Co, both the scrips closed on their upper circuit. Honda Cars, Millat Tractors also finished on record highs.

According to analyst Adnan Sami Sheikh of Topline Securities, top index point gainers were HBL which gained 2pc, INDU 5pc, MTL 3pc, NESTLE 2.2pc and PSMC 5pc, adding 151 points.

While losers were led by FFC which fell 2.6pc, Searle 4.4pc, CHCC 3.6pc, ENGRO 0.7pc and TRG 2.5pc wiping out 118 points from the index.

Other senior analyst said that from the sector perspective, consumer staples rose 2.03pc, industrials 1.08pc and consumer discretionary 0.95pc, contributing towards a positive close.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2017