KARACHI: The Pakis­tan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed another day of the positive movement in share prices as the benchmark index stayed in the green zone throughout the session on Wednesday.

According to Arif Habib Ltd, trading activity remained sideways owing to political unrest while the devaluation of the rupee against the dollar also played its part in weakening investors’ sentiments.

However, value buying was observed in the fertiliser sector while profit-taking took place across the board in the last trading hour.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 44,111.10 points, inching up 183.02 points or 0.42 per cent from a day ago.

The trading volume decreased 6.3pc to 108.4 million shares while the traded value went down 6.9pc to $22.9m on a day-on-day basis.

The trading volume touched a 22-month low amid the Ramazan factor as well as political uncertainty, said Arif Habib Head of Research Tahir Abbas.

Sectors that contributed the highest number of points to the benchmark index included fertiliser (64.4 points), commercial banking (35.97 points), technology and communication (30.81 points), power generation and distribution (28.67 points) and investment banking (25.3 points).

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Treet Corporation Ltd (13.43m shares), TeleCard Ltd (11.96m shares), Engro Polymer and Chemicals Ltd (5.56m shares), K-Electric Ltd (5.26m shares) and Ghani Global Holdings Ltd (4.5m shares).

Stocks that contributed the maximum number of points to the index included Engro Corporation Ltd (47.48 points), The Hub Power Company Ltd (26.41 points), Dawood Hercules Corporation Ltd (24.95 points), Systems Ltd (24.5 points) and Engro Polymer and Chemicals Ltd (19.71 points).

Shares contributing most negatively to the index included Nestle Pakistan Ltd (21.94 points), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (15.76 points), Abbott Laboratories Pakistan Ltd (7.23 points), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (6.19 points) and The Searle Company Ltd (5.62 points).

Shares that increased the most in percentage terms were Pak Elektron Ltd (7.46pc), Engro Polymer and Chemicals Ltd (3.46pc), Dawood Hercules Corporation Ltd (3.09pc), Engro Corporation Ltd (2.28pc) and Fatima Fertiliser Company Ltd (2.08pc).

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2022