KARACHI: Shares listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) carried forward on Tuesday their buying momentum from a day ago with investors opting to invest funds in blue-chip stocks offering attractive dividend yields.

According to Topline Securities, oil stocks initially led the show where a recent rally in global oil prices brought them under the radar of investors yet again.

The KSE 100 index mostly stayed in the green zone during the trading hours. It made an intraday high at the 43,398-point level, up 168 points or 0.39 per cent. However, profit-taking kicked off soon afterwards, pushing the market towards an intraday low level of 43,164 points, down 66 points or 0.15pc.

As a result, the benchmark index settled at 43,204 points, down 26 points or 0.06pc from a day ago.

The trading volume increased 10.7pc to 138.3 million shares while the traded value went up 27.2pc to $27.5m on a day-on-day basis.

Sectors that took away the highest number of points from the benchmark index included commercial banking (36.16 points), oil and gas exploration (25.06 points), cement (18.94 points), auto (11.96 points) and investment banking (10.46 points).

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Treet Corporation Ltd (15.35m shares), TPL Properties Ltd (8.38m shares), Pak Elektron Ltd (7.35m shares), Summit Bank Ltd (6.6m shares) and TeleCard Ltd (6.34m shares).

Shares contributing positively to the index included The Hub Power Company Ltd (28.64 points), TRG Pakistan Ltd (22.17 points), Engro Corporation Ltd (19.91 points), Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (15.85 points) and Fatima Fertiliser Company Ltd (8.73 points).

Stocks that took away the maximum number of points from the index included Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (19.8 points), Bank AL Habib Ltd (17.16 points), Lucky Cement Ltd (15.65 points), Systems Ltd (13.71 points) and MCB Bank Ltd (12 points).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.95m.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2022