KARACHI: Bulls regained their control of the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday as investors celebrated the positive triggers on the economic front.

Arif Habib Ltd said investors welcomed the much-needed clarity provided by the monetary policy statement announced a day ago. The index of representative shares opened in the positive range and stayed at an elevated level throughout the trading session.

Investors remained enthusiastic as they expected favourable outcomes from the ongoing talks of the government with the International Monetary Fund. The trading volume also improved drastically across the board as investors remained active throughout the day.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 39,055.65 points, up 612.06 points or 1.59 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume increased 121.1pc to 179.8 million shares. The traded value went up 126.4pc to $27.6m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (13.1m shares), Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (12.5m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (11.8m shares), Al-Shaheer Corporation Ltd (10.5m shares) and Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (7.6m shares).

Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were exploration and production (98.3 points), fertiliser (88.7 points), cement (81.7 points), miscellaneous (77 points) and commercial banking (69.9 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Pakistan Services Ltd (Rs146.67), Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs48.75), Philip Morris Pakistan Ltd (Rs39.75), Siemens Pakistan Engineering Ltd (Rs30.99) and Al-Abbas Sugar Mills Ltd (Rs24.56).

Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs82), Wah Noble Chemicals Ltd (Rs11.45), Sunrays Textile Mills Ltd (Rs10.90), Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs6.75) and Khyber Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs6.75).

Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.38m.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2023