KARACHI: Despite aggressive foreign selling, the benchmark KSE 100 index shrugged off overnight negative sentiments and closed in the green on Tuesday.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks closed higher on speculation ahead of the federal budget FY25, to be unveiled on June 7.

He added that a strong earnings outlook, upbeat World Bank forecast for 15pc inflation for FY25, current account deficit at 0.6pc of GDP, rupee stability, and foreign inflows aided higher close.

Topline Securities Ltd said the index experienced a mixed session.

Positive contributions to the index came from Meezan Bank Ltd, Bank Al-Habib Ltd, United Bank Ltd, Service Industries Ltd, and Pakgen Power Ltd, adding 301 points collectively. Conversely, Dawood Hercules Corporation Ltd, Pakistan Oilfield Ltd, Fauji Fertiliser Company, Thal Ltd, and OGDC contributed 180 points negatively.

As a result, the benchmark index hit an intraday high of 75,482.46 and a low of 74,958.10. However, the KSE 100 index settled at 75,206.77 points after adding 122.77 points or 0.16pc on a day-on-day basis.

However, the overall trading volume rose 23.16pc to 462.23 million shares. The traded value, however, dipped 2.63pc to Rs15.87bn day-on-day.

K-Electric Ltd led the volumes chart with just over 40.9 million shares traded, following the news that the power regulator has approved a seven-year plan for increasing its generation capacity by approximately 3,200MW and reducing the tariff by an estimated 9pc, lowering it to 7.9 cents from the current rate of 8.7 cents.

The shares registering the most significant increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Service Industries Ltd (Rs56.46), Mahmood Textile (Rs26.30), Khyber Textile (Rs22.82), Hallmark Company Ltd (Rs22.10) and Sazgar Engineering Works Ltd (Rs21.39).

The companies registering the major decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were Unilever Pakistan Food (Rs428.42), Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs96.54), Hoechst Pak (Rs29.19), Pakistan Engineering Ltd (Rs27.77) and Shahmurad Sugar (Rs22.65).

Foreign investors turned net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $15.6m.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2024