KARACHI: Bulls made a comeback at the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday as share prices closed on the higher side thanks to positive triggers.
Arif Habib Ltd said the index of representative shares hit an intraday high of 293.07 points as investors adopted a value-hunting-on-dips strategy. Their enthusiasm was based on the expectation of a positive outcome from the ongoing negotiations between the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the $7 billion loan programme’s revival.
The likely approval of a new refinery policy in the next meeting of the cabinet committee on energy scheduled for this week kept the shares of oil refining companies in the limelight.
As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 40,949.84 points, up 276.2 points or 0.68 per cent from the preceding session.
The overall trading volume increased 4.1pc to 96.5 million shares. The traded value went up 3pc to $17.5m on a day-on-day basis.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included TRG Pakistan Ltd (12.9m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (12.2m shares), Hascol Petroleum Ltd (3.4m shares), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (3.2m shares) and Interloop Ltd (3m shares).
Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were technology and communication (88.9 points), miscellaneous (60.6 points), cement (43.5 points), exploration and production (31.7 points) and power generation and distribution (23.1 points).
Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Pakistan Services Ltd (Rs115.79), Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs69.22), Premium Textile Mills Ltd (Rs40.97), JS Global Capital Ltd (Rs14.50) and Sitara Chemical Industries Ltd (Rs13.97).
Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs46.58), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs37.73), Philip Morris Pakistan Ltd (Rs30.55), Archroma Pakistan Ltd (Rs16.12) and Indus Motor Company Ltd (Rs10.94).
Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.47m.
Published in Dawn, February 22th, 2023
