KARACHI: Amid renewed concerns about the economic outlook after the pre-mature termination of contracts with the Independent Power Producers (IPPs), the stock market witnessed wild fluctuations on Friday. However, the benchmark index closed the weekend session in the green with meagre gains.

Topline Securities Ltd said the ongoing negotiations with the IPPs, where five agreed to early termination of Power Purchase Agreements (PPA), had changed the market sentiment.

The KSE 100 index traded mainly in the negative zone during the session, hitting an intraday low of 679 points at 84,774.46. However, the index barely added 30.18 points or 0.04pc to settle at 85,483.40 on some buying towards the closing hours.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks recovered in late session buying led by banking and auto scrips on strong earnings outlook.

He added that upbeat data on car sales surged by a quarter year-on-year in September, and robust remittances aided the index, lifting investor sentiments, which led to a positive zone.

Significant positive contributions came from PSO, Fauji Fertiliser, Engro Fertiliser, Pioneer Cement, and United Bank, cumulatively contributed 276 points to the index. Conversely, Hub Power, Lucky Cement, Habib Bank, TRG Pakistan, and Service Industries shaved off 327 points.

The trading volume rose 11.31 per cent to 560.74 million shares. However, the traded value fell 6.41pc to Rs26.12bn day-on-day.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Hub Power Company (58.15m shares), Pakistan Telecom (51.35m shares), WorldCall Telecom (45.69m shares), Hum Network (32.95m shares) and Kohinoor Spinning Mills Ltd (25.95m shares).

The shares registering the most significant increases in their prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan (Rs153.70), Rafhan Maize (Rs116.35), Atlas Honda (Rs68.36), Atlas Battery (Rs32.22) and Colgate Pakistan (Rs29.49).

The companies that suffered major losses in their share prices in absolute terms were Hallmark Company Ltd (Rs120.64), Unilever Foods (Rs88.50), Lucky Core Industries (Rs30.41), Lucky Cement (Rs28.67) and Bhanero Textile (Rs26.73).

The foreign investors remained net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.44m.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2024