KARACHI: The stock market witnessed a relatively flat trading session on Thursday with the KSE-100 index hitting an intraday high of 248.41 points.

Arif Habib Ltd said investors opted to cherry-pick stocks with strong fundamentals given the attractive valuation currently on offer in the market.

A rally was observed in cement and IT sectors although profit-taking took place during the second half of the day. Investors’ participation remained healthy with decent volumes being recorded across the board.

Some support came from the speculations in blue-chip stocks regarding share buyback announcements. Analyst Ahsan Mehanti said strong financial results also played the role of a catalyst in positive activity.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 42,093.80 points, up 5.87 points or 0.01 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume decreased 11.9pc to 255.3 million shares. The traded value went down 8.9pc to $32.7m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (23.4m shares), Fauji Foods Ltd (17m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (13.6m shares), Bank Alfalah Ltd (11.7m shares) and BankIslami Pakistan Ltd (8.5m shares).

Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were technology and communication (48 points), commercial banking (46.2 points), food and personal care products (33.6 points), paper and board (19.5 points) and textile composite (12.1 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Rafhan Maize Products Company Ltd (Rs592.50), Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs396.37), Bhanero Textile Mills Ltd (Rs74.21), Premium Textile Mills Ltd (Rs36.91) and Khyber Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs33.33).

Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Khyber Textile Mills Ltd (Rs59.62), Indus Motor Company Ltd (Rs54.65), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs45), Faisal Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs24) and Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (Rs19.23).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $9.27m.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2023