KARACHI: After oscillating within a short range, the prices of representative stocks inched up on Monday despite profit-taking by investors.

Topline Securities said negative sentiments can be attributed to market reports that hinted at a further delay in the staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In addition, the market anticipated that the central bank’s monetary policy committee would meet sooner than scheduled and increase the key interest rate — something that kept investors from taking fresh positions.

According to Arif Habib Ltd, the benchmark index traded in both directions as investors chose to remain passive owing to political uncertainty and the delayed IMF programme.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 40,784.13 points, up 76.37 points or 0.19 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume increased 3pc to 158.1 million shares. The traded value went up 15.4pc to $22m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included WorldCall Telecom Ltd (39.5m shares), the Hub Power Company Ltd (22.6m shares), TPL Properties Ltd (11.9m shares), Habib Bank Ltd (6.2m shares) and Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (4.5m shares).

Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were commercial banking (86.1 points), miscellaneous (50.4 points), cement (17.7 points), power generation and distribution (17.7 points) and automobile assembling (12.4 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Unilever Pakistan Food Ltd (Rs1,430), Pakistan Services Ltd (Rs95), Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs82.40), Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs43.26) and Premium Textile Mills Ltd (Rs42).

Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Bata Pakistan Ltd (Rs106.90), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs31.24), Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs28.81), Ismail Industries Ltd (Rs15) and Sanofi-Aventis Pakistan Ltd (Rs14.85).

Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $1.24m.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2023