KARACHI: The stock market witnessed another day of lacklustre trading on the back of rising energy prices and an unstoppable surge in the number of Covid-19 cases.

Range-bound trading resulted in the index oscillating between an intraday high of 229 points and an intraday low of 41 points before closing at 45,078 points, according to Topline Securities.

By the end of trading, the KSE-100 index could add just 5.13 points, up 0.01 per cent from a day ago.

Market participation increased 49.1pc to 173.6 million shares while the value of traded shares went up 23.6pc to Rs8.12 billion.

Sectors that contributed the highest number of points to the benchmark index included food and personal care (19.97 points), fertiliser (13.66 points), investment banking (10.99 points), tobacco (9.65 points) and textile (6.43 points).

Sectors that took the highest number of points from the benchmark were cement (38.82 points), oil and gas exploration (17.74 points), chemical (12.6 points), oil and gas marketing (11.24 points) and automobile (3.11 points).

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Hum Network Ltd (37.88m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (31.45m shares), Ghani Global Holdings Ltd (16.53m shares), TRG Pakistan Ltd (11.85m shares) and Engro Fertilisers Ltd (10.25m shares).

Shares contributing positively to the index included TRG Pakistan Ltd (16.11 points), Bank AL Falah Ltd (15 points), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (9.65 points), Dawood Hercules Corporation Ltd (9.42 points) and Engro Fertilisers Ltd (8.4 points).

Stocks that took away the maximum number of points from the index included Lucky Cement Ltd (39.31 points), Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (20.19 points), Systems Ltd (16.2 points), MCB Bank Ltd (11.2 points) and Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (10.74 points).

Stocks recording the biggest increases in percentage terms included Faysal Bank Ltd, which went up 3.35pc, followed by Standard Chartered Bank Pakistan Ltd (3.23pc), Archroma Pakistan Ltd (3.2pc), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (3.01pc) and Bank Alfalah Ltd (2.9pc).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.26m.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2022