KARACHI: A range-bound session took place on the stock exchange on Wednesday as investors battled the blues of the rollover week in which futures contracts are either settled or rolled over to the next month.

Arif Habib Ltd said the benchmark opened in the positive zone but sluggish activity marred the trading session. In the last hour, profit-taking took place and led the index to close in the red zone.

Investors’ sentiments took a hit after the central bank announced the country recorded a current account deficit of $1.2 billion in July after shrinking 45.4 per cent from the gap of $2.2bn registered a month ago.

A falling rupee also helped the index close in the negative zone. The local currency lost its value against the dollar for the third straight session and closed at 218.38, down 0.33pc from a day ago.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 43,337.97 points, down 28.8 points or 0.07pc from a day ago.

The trading volume decreased 20.9pc to 256.5 million shares while the traded value went down 9.4pc to $40.1m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Hascol Petroleum Ltd (27.01m shares), K-Electric Ltd (20.81m shares), Pakistan International Airlines Ltd (13.49m shares), Bank Alfalah Ltd (13.09m shares) and TPL Properties Ltd (10.81m shares).

Sectors contributing to the index performance included cement (-43.8 points), miscellaneous (-43.5 points), investment banking (-19.1 points), textile composite (-12.2 points) and exploration and production (-12.1 points).

Companies registering the biggest increase in their share prices in absolute terms were Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs34), Systems Ltd (Rs10.94), Jubilee Life Insurance Company Ltd (Rs9.96), Tariq Glass Industries Ltd (Rs9.08) and Fazal Cloth Mills Ltd (Rs8.66).

Shares that declined the most in rupee terms were Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs127), Pakistan Services Ltd (Rs75), Lucky Cement Ltd (Rs8.49), Hafiz Ltd (Rs8.46) and Packages Ltd (Rs7.56).

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2022