KARACHI: Cherry-picking by investors led the index of representative stocks on the Pakistan Stock Exchange to post a small gain on Wednesday.

Arif Habib Ltd said the KSE-100 index opened on the lower side owing to the ongoing political turbulence caused by the government’s attempt to arrest former premier Imran Khan.

However, bulls quickly drove the index up to an intraday high of 193.69 points as investors accumulated stocks on attractive valuations. Trading volumes remained robust across the mainboard stock while the cement sector stayed in the spotlight on the expectation of good earnings in the upcoming results’ season.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,874.04 points, up 57.61 points or 0.14 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume increased 25.9pc to 233.3 million shares. The traded value went up 24.9pc to $29.85m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (32.8m shares), Hascol Petroleum Ltd (12.3m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (11m shares), Fauji Cement Company Ltd (9.4m shares) and D.G. Khan Cement Company Ltd (8.4m shares).

Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were cement (118.5 points), commercial banking (20.6 points), engineering (19.2 points), textile composite (13.8 points) and paper and board (12.2 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were ZIL Ltd (Rs16.14), JS Global Capital Ltd (Rs14.50), Khyber Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs13.45), Fazal Cloth Mills Ltd (Rs10.43) and Abbott Laboratories Pakistan Ltd (Rs9.95).

Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Pakistan Services Ltd (Rs139.50), Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs41.50), Philip Morris Pakistan Ltd (Rs40), Ismail Industries Ltd (Rs34.61) and JDW Sugar Mills Ltd (Rs26.86).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.13m.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2023