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KARACHI: The stock market snapped two-day losing streak on Thursday and recovered 204 points, or 0.40 per cent, to close at 46,920.
The investors were comforted after the tumbling rupee took a breather and managed to regain some of the value against the dollar. The market remained volatile with the index trading between the intraday high and low by 242 and 93 points.
The index mainly surged on the back of technology and the Oil & Gas Exploration sectors. Both being heavyweight in the index, they were able to prevail over the bearish tendency. Technology sector saw several shares post significant gains in the lead of TRG.
Analysts at Topline Securities said: “Investor interest was mostly witnessed in TRG on the back of FTSE rebalancing inflows due on Friday which led the stock to close 5.46pc contributing the most points in the index.”
Stocks that contributed positively to the index included TRG (101 points), OGDC (25 points), PPL (23 points), Unity (20 points) and FABL (17 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include AGP (11 points), MEBL (9 points), Lucky Cement (7 points), System Ltd (7 points) and MTL (7 points).
On the news front, large-scale manufacturing witnessed a growth of 2.25pc in July while petrol prices were increased heavily in one go. All eyes are set on the monetary policy for the next two months, to be unveiled on Sept 20.
Analysts at Arif Habib Ltd said they expect the SBP to keep policy rate unchanged at 7pc.
Sector-wise, exploration & production mad a rare break through with gains in Pakistan Oilfields, OGDC and Pakistan Petroleum on account of rising trend in domestic and international oil prices. Textile stocks turned green with Gadoon and Nishat in the lead. Nominal gains were witnessed in steel, chemical and banking sector stocks. Cement shares continued to be mauled.
The trading volume increased 22pc over the previous session to 405.2m shares. Nearly half the volume was generated in five stocks: SERFR, WTL, TRG, UNITY and TELE.
Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2021
