KARACHI: The index movement in the stock market on Tuesday remained sideways amid mounting concerns over rising political and economic unrest.

Arif Habib Ltd said trading opened in the negative zone as the rupee continued its decline against the dollar. The local currency lost 1.31 per cent to close at 232.93 in the interbank market.

Volumes remained dry on the main board although a decent number of shares changed hands in third-tier stocks.

The delay in the announcement of the Supreme Court’s verdict on the election of the Punjab chief minister added to the woes of the investors who shied away from the market.

JS Global said the future direction of the stock market will be determined by developments on the political and economic fronts. “We recommend investors should stay cautious at the current level,” it added.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 39,894.05 points, up 50.03 points or 0.13pc from a day ago.

The trading volume increased 74.8pc to 131.9 million shares while the traded value went up 129.6pc to $18.1m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included TPL Properties Ltd (19.63m shares), Cnergyico PK Ltd (11.88m shares), Lotte Chemical Ltd (11.11m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (8.67m shares) and Pakistan Refinery Ltd (6.41m shares).

Sectors contributing to the index performance included banking (23.6 points), exploration and production (18.7 points), oil marketing (16.9 points), technology (15.1 points) and textile (14.8 points).

Stocks that recorded the biggest gains in percentage terms were Premier Insurance Ltd (16.67pc), Picic Insurance Ltd (12.5pc), Hashmi Can Company Ltd (11.11pc), Mehmood Textile Mills Ltd (7.5pc) and Nadeem Textile Mills Ltd (7.49pc).

Shares registering the highest losses in percentage terms were Ashfaq Textile Mills Ltd (8.23pc), First Pak Modaraba (8.16pc), Beco Steel Ltd (7.54pc), Elcot Spinning Mills Ltd (7.5pc) and Shield Corporation Ltd (7.44pc).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.37m.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2022