KARACHI: Stocks rose on Tuesday, thanks to the investors’ optimism about the potential finalisation of a policy-level agreement between the government and the International Mone­tary Fund (IMF).

Progress on the resolution of the gas sector’s circular debt brought the exploration and production stocks into the spotlight, said Arif Habib Ltd.

The government is considering settling the outstanding debt in the gas sector by means of a cash injection to the twin Sui companies. The amount of settled circular debt is expected to come back to the government via dividends.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,723.32 points, up 200.56 points or 0.48 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume increased 0.4pc to 297.8 million shares. The traded value went down 2.5pc to $44.2m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included WorldCall Telecom Ltd (64.4m shares), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (22.2m shares), Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (15.8m shares), Lotte Chemical Pakistan Ltd (13.1m shares) and K-Electric Ltd (11.8m shares).

Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were technology and communication (77.2 points), oil marketing (46.5 points), pharmaceutical (44.1 points), chemical (15.7 points) and cement (13.1 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Bhanero Textile Mills Ltd (Rs76.51), Lucky Core Industries Ltd (Rs34.74), Abbott Labora­tories Pakistan Ltd (Rs25.16), JS Global Capital Ltd (Rs21.32) and Siemens Pakistan Engineering Ltd (Rs15.94).

Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs41.67), Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs38.27), Premium Textile Mills Ltd (Rs28.99), Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs23.99) and JDW Sugar Mills Ltd (Rs22).

Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.84m.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2023