KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange continued its positive momentum on Thursday as investors’ confidence received a boost on the late-night announcement of a third increase in fuel prices in the last 20 days, said Arif Habib Ltd.

The government increa­sed diesel and petrol prices by Rs59 and Rs24, respectively, on Wednesday night in line with the International Monetary Fund’s guidelines with regard to untargeted fuel subsidies.

Trading activity remai­ned healthy across the board with the cement sector staying in the limelight owing to a price increase in the North region. JS Global said investors should wait for clarity on the economic front and use any downside as a buying opportunity.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,730.16 points, up 291.37 points or 0.7 per cent from a day ago.

The trading volume incr­ea­sed 14.4pc to 162.2 million shares while the traded value went up 0.3pc to $23m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included WorldCall Telecom Ltd (21.55m shares), Oilboy Energy Ltd (11.39m shares), Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (10.23m shares), Pakis­tan Refinery Ltd (6.49m shares) and Cnergyico PK Ltd (5.88m shares).

Sectors that contributed the highest number of points to the benchmark index included oil and gas exploration (63.66 points), power generation and distribution (55.77 points), cement (53.7 points), fertiliser (49.3 points) and oil and gas marketing (35.36 points).

Shares contributing most positively to the index included the Hub Power Company Ltd (47.24 points), Fauji Fertiliser Company Ltd (35.38 points), Pakistan State Oil Company Ltd (26.57 points), Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (23.84 points) and Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (21.75 points).

Stocks that contributed most negatively to the index included Standard Chartered Bank Pakistan Ltd (9.2 points), Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (8.61 points), Meezan Bank Pakistan Ltd (7.57 points), Javedan Corporation Ltd (5.75 points) and Habib Bank Ltd (5.54 points).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.93m.

Published in Dawn,June 17th, 2022