KARACHI: With continued foreign buying driven by positive economic indicators, the stock market maintained its record-setting spree and closed the session at another highest-ever level despite a significant drop in overall trading volume on Thursday.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said a reduction of up to 49 basis points in the yields on different T-bill tenors and the inclusion of the National Bank of Pakistan in MSCI’s Frontier Market Index, raising the country’s weight to 4pc from July 1, encouraged foreign portfolio inflows, taking the index to another record close.

Extending the overnight positive momentum, trading began well, but the index couldn’t hold at 75,000 due to profit-taking, according to Topline Securities Ltd.

Banks, technology and steel sectors contributed positively where UBL, MCB Bank, Systems Ltd, Bank Alfalah, Meezan Bank and International Steel Ltd added 328 points to the index performance. Con­versely, Hub Power Com­pany Ltd, Engro Ferti­liser and Oil and Gas Develop­ment Company cumulatively shaved off 97 points.

As a result, the benchmark index hit an intraday high of 75,029.03 and a low of 74,450.26. However, the KSE 100 index closed at an all-time high of 74,930.70 points after gaining 266.72 points or 0.36pc on a day-on-day basis.

However, the overall trad­ing volume plunged 28.78pc to 407.62 million shares. The traded value tumbled by 34.56pc to Rs16.97bn on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Pakistan International Airlines (34.84m shares), Pak Elektron Ltd (28.54m shares), Worldcall Telecom (24.07m shares), Dewan Cement (22.71m shares) and Pakistan Stock Exchange (15.62m shares).

The shares registering the most significant increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs57.78), Mehmood Textile (Rs23.11), Thal Ltd (Rs21.83), Exide Pakistan (Rs19.67) and Atlas Honda (Rs18.26).

The companies registering the major decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pak­istan (Rs100.00), Hallmark Company Ltd (Rs42.59), Khyber Textile (Rs37.53), Unilever Food (Rs25.54) and Sazgar Engineering Works Ltd (Rs25.43).

Foreign investors remai­n­ed net buyers as they picked shares worth $4.31m.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2024