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KARACHI: The stock market remained range-bound throughout the trading session on Tuesday because of concerns over rising inflation.
Headline inflation clocked in at 27.3 per cent last week, a 47-year high. Prices of food items are expected to increase in the wake of the floods that have substantially damaged crops nationwide.
Arif Habib Ltd said the benchmark KSE-100 index, after opening in the positive zone, succumbed to pressure as investors’ participation remained sideways. Another reason for the drop in share prices was the continuous rupee devaluation against dollar.
The local currency depreciated 0.7 per cent against the dollar to close at 221.42 in the interbank market. JS Global said it expected range-bound activity to continue in the next few sessions. It recommended that investors should avail any downside as an opportunity to buy cement and textile stocks.
The KSE-100 index settled at 41,860.36 points, added only 1.06 points from a day ago.
The trading volume increased 19.4pc to 187.3 million shares while the traded value went down 8pc to $18.1m on a day-on-day basis.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Hascol Petroleum Ltd (46.8m shares), Pakistan International Airlines Ltd (10.87m shares), Fauji Foods Ltd (9.34m shares), Cnergyico PK Ltd (9.25m shares) and Pakistan Refinery Ltd (8.93m shares).
Sectors that contributed positively to the index performance were banking (33.1 points), oil marketing (31.3 points), technology (25.9 points), automobile (10 points) and chemical (10 points).
Companies registering the biggest increase in their share prices in absolute terms were Premium Textile Mills Ltd (Rs42), Sanofi-Aventis Pakistan Ltd (Rs39.45), Pakistan Engineering Company Ltd (Rs19.81), Fazal Cloth Mills Ltd (Rs16.13) and Atlas Honda Ltd (Rs12.55).
Shares that declined the most in rupee terms were Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs96.45), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs37.72), Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs36.05), Gatron Industries Ltd (Rs26.85) and Faisal Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs24.90).
Foreign investors remained net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $1.24m.
Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2022
