KARACHI: Stocks rebounded on Tuesday recovering almost half the losses suffered a day earlier. The KSE-100 index climbed by 463.41 points (1.14 per cent) and settled above the 41,000 level at 41,204.36.

The recovery encouraged many participants to ex­­press satisfaction over the “correction” on Monday, which they said was essential for the health of the market.

Trading started on a sombre note as profit-taking continued with the index hitting intraday low by 351 points. Brokers, corporates and insurance took the lead in buying on dips while mutual funds had to liquidate for the second day to meet redemption requests.

Foreign investors sold sizeable chunk of shares worth $4.06 million. Analysts at Arif Habib Ltd stated that settlement ratios from last week’s rollover activity continued the selling pressure on the bourse, in addition to redemption called by mutual funds.

But as soon as the settlement concluded, heavy buying erupted across the board. The benchmark hit intraday high by 704 points. Other traders said that the scare over the political instability following the arrest of opposition’s leader died down which brought back investors to the market and lap up stocks available at discounted prices.

The volume declined 13pc over the earlier day to 353.7m shares while traded value also fell by 3pc to reach $83.2m, as against $86.1m. By the end of trading, almost all sectors had turned green.

In cement, which was an underperformer last week after reports of the Competition Commission of Pakistan launching a probe on pricing, Pioneer, Maple Leaf and Lucky were the major gainers.

Late buying was seen in refineries where Attock, National and Pakistan rose and Byco hit the upper circuit. Pharmaceutical companies were mainly up while the technology sector joined the rally where TRG and Netsol rose substantially while Avanceon hit the upper limit.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2020