KARACHI: Mixed signals on the economic front resulted in share prices oscillating within a short range on Monday.

Arif Habib Ltd said the index of representative shares opened on the lower side while extending losses from the last session of the preceding week. But investors’ sentiments quickly changed as news reports hinted at the early disbursement of next IMF tranche of $1.2bn.

Share prices soon reached an elevated level and then stayed there for a large part of the session while hitting an intraday high of 249.38 points. The engagement by investors in the exploration and production sector remained high due to the possibility of a gas tariff increase, it added.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,716.95 points, down 24.83 points or 0.06 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume decreased 31.7pc to 192.4 million shares. The traded value went down 47.9pc to $28.4m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Sui Southern Gas Company Ltd (22.2m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (16.3m shares), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (15.1m shares), Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (13.6m shares) and Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (12.5m shares).

Sectors contributing negatively to the index performance were technology and communication (72.1 points), oil marketing (53.4 points), automobile assembling (15.6 points), pharmaceutical (14.9 points) and engineering (6.8 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs73.37), Good Luck Industries Ltd (Rs52.45), Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs42.92), JDW Sugar Mills Ltd (Rs23.20) and Indus Motor Company Ltd (Rs20.57).

Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Millat Tractors Ltd (Rs17.28), Systems Ltd (Rs13.19), Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (Rs11.36), Lucky Core Industries Ltd (Rs11.02) and Ellcot Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs9.93).

Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.44m.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2023