KARACHI: Stocks ended on a flattish note on Tuesday where the market witnessed renewed buying in the initial hours that carried the KSE-100 index up by intraday high of 230 points.

Mutual funds continued to lead the buyers as they added stocks worth $1.58 million to their portfolio. “Other organisations” also purchased shares valued at $1.48m while punters and day traders engaged in alternative bouts of buying and selling. The heavy profit-booking in the last hour saw the index cede almost all the gains and dip in the red for a moment before recovering to finish with minor gains of 54.04 points, or 0.11 per cent, at 47,420.

Lack of major positive news on the economic front kept the investors in a quandary who were unable to decide on the direction of the market going forward. Most small investors churned mid-term items while high net worth individuals and institutions put off further buying to another day. The reaffirmation of Pakistan’s sovereign credit rating at B-/B with the stable outlook by Standard and Poor’s rating provided some cheer to the market.

Exploration & Production companies turned green as a consortium including Mari Petroleum, PPL and OGDC announced to have won/awarded Abu Dhabi’s offshore Block 5.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti stated that mid-session pressure on the equities remained on concerns over the surging external debt. However, speculations on likely EU approval over GSP plus exports status and a further hike in global crude oil prices played a catalyst role in positive close.

The traded volume stood at 379m shares with Telecard taking the lead in terms of shares traded at 42m. The trading value of all shares stood at $84m.

Major positive contributors were namely Systems Ltd, Mari Petroleum, Lucky Cement, Pak Elektron and PPL which cumulatively added 117 points to the benchmark index while POL, Meezan Bank, Bank Al Habib, Pak Suzuki and Pioneer Cement dragged the KSE 100 index down by 71 points.

Analysts calculated that the KSE-100 index gained 364 points in the month of August.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2021