KARACHI: Bulls dominated the trading floor of the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday amid positive triggers on the economic front.

Arif Habib Ltd said the index of representative shares opened in the positive zone and stayed there throughout the trading session as investors expect­ed the approval for the next loan tranche under the International Monetary Fund’s programme.

Investors’ participation remained adequate in exploration and production stocks because of the favourable news flow regard­ing the resolution of the gas sector’s circular debt.

“We recommend that investors should avail any downside as an opportunity to buy in cement, technology and exploration and production sectors,” said JS Global.

The KSE-100 index settled at 41,522.76 points, up 331.99 points or 0.81 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume increased 67.8pc to 296.6 million shares. The traded value went up 41.9pc to $45.3m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included WorldCall Telecom Ltd (44.7m shares), Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (31.7m shares), Sui Southern Gas Company Ltd (16.1m shares), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (16.1m shares) and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (14.2m shares).

Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were technology and communication (166.6 points), exploration and production (131.9 points), commercial banking (69 points), pharmaceutical (15.9 points) and power generation and distribution (10.9 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs39), Premium Textile Mills Ltd (Rs27.76), Systems Ltd (Rs25.27), Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (Rs24.38) and Ismail Industries Ltd (Rs22.82).

Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Unilever Pakistan Foods Ltd (Rs1,146.07), Rafhan Maize Products Company Ltd (Rs299), Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs71.50), the Thal Industries Corporation Ltd (Rs23) and Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs16.56).

Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.39m.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2023