KARACHI: Bulls maintained a strong grip on the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Thursday, with the benchmark of the representative companies hovering in the green zone throughout the trading session.

Topline Securities said the buying momentum could be attributed to the lowering of the political temperature. The remarks by the chief justice about the initiation of a grand dialogue among political parties without any direction or timeline from the court played a positive role.

Moreover, the financial results’ seasons hit its peak with dozens of big and small companies announcing their quarterly earnings, which also helped improve investors’ sentiments.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,463.91 points, up 364.33 points or 0.89 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume decreased 9.5pc to 163.1 million shares. The traded value went up 7.9pc to $22m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing sig­ni­fi­cantly to the traded volume included Bank Alfalah Ltd (14.2m

shares), Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (7.2m shares), Pakistan Refinery Ltd (6.8m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (6.4m shares) and Treet Corporation Ltd (4.7m shares).

Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were investment banking (71.7 points), commercial banking (58.5 points), cement (47.2 points), exploration and production (43.9 points) and fertiliser (30.1 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs133.98), Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs72.78), Pakistan Services Ltd (Rs55.58), Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (Rs49.52) and Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs24.99).

Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Premium Textile Mills Ltd (Rs31.64), Towellers Ltd (Rs16.75), Khyber Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs15.37), Siemens Pakistan Engineering Ltd (Rs13) and Philip Morris Pakistan Ltd (Rs5.83).

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

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2023