KARACHI: The national bourse witnessed another lacklustre session on Tue­sday, thanks to drawn-out political battles between the government and the alliance of opposition parties.

Although the market stayed positive throughout the day, activity on the main board remained sluggish, according to Arif Habib Ltd.

The buying volume rose towards the end of the session possibly because the press reported the managing director of the Pakistan Stock Exchange has asked the government to allow construction sector–like taxation relief for the equities market, said a note issued by Standard Capital Securities.

At the end of trading, the KSE-100 index gained 352.93 points or 0.81 per cent on a day-on-day basis to close at 43,719.82 points.

The trading volume incre­ased 64.2pc to 189 million shares while the traded value went up 28.6pc to $26.2m on a day-on-day basis.

Sectors that contributed the highest number of points to the benchmark index included cement (75.9 points), power generation and distribution (68.07 points), technology and communication (55.33 points), commercial banking (39.46 points) and oil and gas marketing (26.37 points).

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included TeleCard Ltd (19.56m shares), TPL Proper­ties Ltd (15.28m shares), Treet Corporation Ltd (13.73m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (13.52m shares) and Sui Southern Gas Company Ltd (10.9m shares).

Shares contributing positively to the index included The Hub Power Company Ltd (65.51 points), Lucky Cement Ltd (36.06 points), TRG Paki­s­tan Ltd (28.33 points), Syst­ems Ltd (20.86 points) and Habib Bank Ltd (19.58 points).

Stocks that took away the maximum number of points from the index included Paki­stan Petroleum Ltd (17.15 points), Oil and Gas Develop­ment Company Ltd (15.96 points), Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (15.19 points), United Bank Ltd (9.23 points) and Engro Fertilisers Ltd (6.18 points).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.76m.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2022