KARACHI: Stocks snapped six-day losing streak on Tuesday, as the KSE-100 index recovered 698.46 points (2.11 per cent), or nearly half of the huge loss suffered the previous day.

The session was marked by volatility, since intra-day the index dipped by 217 points before it started steep climb in the last one-and-a-half hour of trading.

“The index witnessed its heaviest point rise after global markets stabilised, easing selling pressure in local stocks,” commented analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp.

The KSE followed the lead of stock markets throughout Asia, which also managed to regain some of the losses from early heavy selling sparked by declines on Wall Street and in London.

Traded volume was 395m shares of Rs19.2 billion value, up from 223m shares (Rs13bn) a day earlier.

Foreigners continued selling-off equity worth $19.67m. The major outflow was seen from banks; oil and gas; fertilisers and the cement sectors.

Individuals returned to pick up battered scrips of $16.27m value.

Dealers at Topline Securities said cement stocks rallied as ADB approved a $4.8bn assistance for infrastructure and institutional reforms.

Fertilisers stocks witnessed aggressive buying amid attractive valuations. However, oil companies remained under pressure.

Better result announcements ignited investors’ interest in Jahangir Siddiqui and Co and Askari Bank.

GSK also gained after demerger announcement.

Analyst Ahmed Saeed Khan at JS Global said that the major support came from the cement and the fertiliser sectors.

Top performers were DG Cement, MLCF, Engro Fertiliser and Engro Corp, all closing at ‘upper circuits’. In the oil sector, ATRL and NRL were up 5pc and 1.1pc.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2015

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