KARACHI: The share market on Wednesday rallied following a formal announcement by PML-N and its allies, including the Pakistan Peoples Party, last evening for the formation of a coalition government which restored investor confidence as a result the benchmark KSE 100-share index partially recovered the overnight losses and settled above the 62,000 level.

Continuing its recovery mood, the equities began the trading on a positive note and remained bullish throughout the session, said Topline Securities Ltd.

The buying momentum can be attributed to clarification with regards to the formation of a new government where major political parties agreed and infor­med about the upcoming coalition setup via a press conference on Tuesday.

The market witnessed an across-the-board buying momentum thanks to the ending of political uncertainty to a larger extent.

Resultantly, exploration and production, fertiliser, technology and OMC sectors contributed positively to the index as Pakistan Petroleum Ltd, Engro Corporation, Engro Fertilisers, Systems Ltd and PSO cumulatively added 343 points to the index.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said news of a coalition government, upbeat auto sales data and MSCI inclusion of 22 firms to its Frontier Market and Small-cap Index boosted market sentiments.

As a result, the KSE-100 index closed at 62,153.84 points after rallying 926.92 points or 1.51 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume dipped 30.22pc to 303.88 million shares. The traded value also fell 8.04pc to Rs14.68bn on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Pakistan K-Electric (33.41.82m shares), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (32.23m shares), Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (15.50m shares), Pakistan Refinery Ltd (14.48m shares) and Dewan Cement Ltd (12.02m shares).

Shares registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Philip Morris (Rs38.50), Indus Motor Company Ltd (Rs38.17), Attock Petroleum Ltd (Rs22.26), Colgate-Palmolive (Rs21.66) and Hallmark Company Ltd (Rs21.12).

Companies registering the biggest decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were Ismail Industries Ltd (Rs93.70), Rafhan Maize Ltd (Rs26.76), Faisal Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs12.97), JS Global Capital Ltd (Rs9.21) and Gatron Industries Ltd (Rs7.76).

Foreign investors remained net buyers as they bought shares worth $0.33m.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2024