KARACHI: The stock market opened in the negative zone on Wednesday over concerns about the nationwide protests called by the PTI.

According to JS Global, investors vigilantly followed the news on the political front throughput the session. The KSE-100 index made a sharp recovery in late hours from the day’s low of 594 points to 62 points above the preceding close.

The market closed positive because investors opted for value-buying in the second part of the session, said Arif Habib Ltd.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 42,012.66 points, up 62.34 points or 0.15 per cent from a day ago.

The trading volume incre­ased 41.4pc to 240 million shares while the traded value went up 38.6pc to $37.5m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Pakistan Refinery Ltd (21.23m shares), K-Elec­tric Ltd (15.14m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (13.43m shares), Cnergyico PK Ltd (12.76m shares) and Ghani Global Holdings Ltd (10.99m shares).

Sectors that contributed the highest number of points to the benchmark index incl­uded technology and communication (42.58 points), cem­ent (23.97 points), food and personal care (18.68 points), chemical (17.6 points) and refinery (16.84 points).

Shares contributing most positively to the index included TRG Pakistan Ltd (20.87 points), Mari Petro­leum Company Ltd (17.72 points), Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (14.53 points), Unity Foods Ltd (11.65 points) and Systems Ltd (10.75 points).

Stocks that contributed most negatively to the index included Engro Fertilisers Ltd (49.42 points), Fauji Fertiliser Company Ltd (29.04 points), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (28.88 points), Pakistan Petr­o­l­­eum Ltd (18.63 points) and MCB Bank Ltd (12.31 points).

Stocks that registered the largest increases in percentage terms were Avanceon Ltd (5.23pc), Pioneer Cem­ent Ltd (4.81pc), IGI Holdings Ltd (4.74pc), Unity Foods Ltd (4.54pc) and Azgard Nine Ltd (4.36pc).

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2022