KARACHI: The representative index of major shares traded in the positive zone on Friday mainly because of the State Bank of Pakistan maintaining its policy rate at 22 per cent against the street consensus of a hike of more than 100 basis points.

Topline Securities said the upswing in share prices was followed by some profit-taking towards the end of the trading session.

According to Arif Habib Ltd, the 46,000-point level remained elusive all week long as the KSE-100 index declined 0.7pc on a week-on-week basis.

No change in the policy rate led to a strong opening on the bourse but some selling in the wake of a rebalancing of the Financial Times Stock Exchange Index capped the market gains.

Big players in the cement segment posted large increases while banking shares saw declines.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 45,753.52 points, up 103.46 points or 0.23pc from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume increased 61pc to 222.5 million shares. The traded value increased almost 300pc to Rs11 billion on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included MCB Bank Ltd (27.2m shares), Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (24.6m shares), Nishat Chunian Power Ltd (13.9m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (8m shares) and Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (8m shares).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Pakistan Services Ltd (Rs49.98), Mehmood Textile Mills Ltd (Rs40.50), Lucky Cement Ltd (Rs18.84), Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs11.47) and Pakistan Hotels Developers Ltd (Rs9.95).

Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Bata Pakistan Ltd (Rs37.98), Lucky Core Industries Ltd (Rs22.41), Murree Brewery Company Ltd (Rs21.46), Shifa International Hospitals Ltd (Rs9.40) and KSB Pumps Company Ltd (Rs6.93).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offlo­aded shares worth $7.05m.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2023