KARACHI: Another range-bound session took place on the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Friday owing to cautious trading by investors who longed for political clarity, according to JS Global.

The index stayed mostly in the positive zone — something that Topline Securities attributed to the national emergency economic plan under which the government has banned the import of non-essential luxury items to save dwindling foreign exchange reserves.

In addition, a 39 per cent decline in the current account deficit on a monthly basis to $623 million in April also helped investors’ sentiments, it added.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 43,100.71 points, up 117.26 points or 0.27pc from a day ago.

The trading volume increased 1.5pc to 189.9m shares while the traded value went down 24.7pc to $19.1m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included K-Electric Ltd (19.22m shares), Silkbank Ltd (17m shares), Pak Elektron Ltd (16.46m shares), Pakistan Refinery Ltd (13m shares) and WorldCall Telecom Ltd (12.46m shares).

Sectors that contributed the highest number of points to the benchmark index included commercial banking (39.01 points), investment banking (16.11 points), oil and gas exploration (14.19 points), cement (9.97 points) and oil and gas marketing (8.45 points).

Shares contributing most positively to the index included Dawood Hercules Corporation Ltd (16.35 points), Systems Ltd (14.59 points), Fauji Fertiliser Company Ltd (12.5 points), Habib Bank Ltd (12.17 points) and Bank AL Habib Ltd (11.63 points).

Stocks that contributed most negatively to the index included TRG Pakistan Ltd (13.53 points), Engro Polymer and Chemicals Ltd (11.6 points), Engro Corporation Ltd (9.56 points), the Hub Power Company Ltd (7.83 points) and Lotte Chemical Pakistan Ltd (6.19 points).

Stocks that registered the largest increases in percentage terms were Javedan Corporation Ltd (5.34pc), IGI Holdings Ltd (4.54pc), Kohinoor Textile Mills Ltd (3.28pc), Atlas Honda Ltd (3.02pc) and Pak Elektron Ltd (2.69pc).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.54m.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2022