KARACHI: The stock market staged a small recovery on Tuesday amid thin trade on investors’ speculations ahead of the Financial Action Task Force meeting, which will decide about Pakistan’s exit from the grey list.

According to Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation, surging crude oil prices in the international market, upbeat data on car sales that grew 50 per cent year-on-year in July-May and the expectations of a positive outcome of the US diplomats’ visit to the Pakistan Stock Exchange played the role of a catalyst in the market’s bullish close.

JS Global said investors remained wary and opted for staying on the sidelines until the emergence of some clarity on the International Monetary Fund loan programme. “We foresee a weak market in the upcoming sessions and advise investors to remain cautious in their approach,” it said.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,054.68 points, up 174.75 points or 0.43pc from a day ago.

The trading volume declined 26.6pc to 120.12 million shares while the traded value went down 22.7pc to Rs3.36 billion on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Unity Foods Ltd (8.18m shares), K-Electric Ltd (7.42m shares), Hum Network Ltd (7.27m shares), Pakistan Refinery Ltd (5.8m shares) and TPL Properties Ltd (5.58m shares).

Sectors that contributed the highest number of points to the benchmark index included commercial banking (52.62 points), oil and gas exploration (43.24 points), oil and gas marketing (32.13 points), technology and communication (28.45 points) and fertiliser (15.55 points).

Shares contributing most positively to the index included Habib Bank Ltd (56.09 points), Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (19.49 points), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (19.31 points), Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (16.23 points) and TRG Pakistan Ltd (15.74 points).

Stocks that contributed most negatively to the index included Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (25.41 points), United Bank Ltd (18.85 points), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (9.75 points), Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (9.17 points) and Lucky Cement Ltd (8.03 points).

Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.03m.

Published in Dawn,June 15th, 2022