KARACHI: Despite mounting political tensions and economic uncertainty, including growing risks to the digital economy due to internet disruptions, the stock market on Thursday showed remarkable resilience as equity investors remained busy in cherry-picking amid a strong earnings outlook, tossing the index above 78,000.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks showed recovery on high corporate payouts, bullish global equities, drop in profit rates on national savings schemes, and likely IMF board ap­proval for the 37-month $7bn Extended Fund Fa­cility this month fuelled bull run on the stock market.

Topline Securities said the fertiliser, exploration and production, information technology, and banking sectors saw significant contributions from Fauji Fertiliser, Pakistan Oilfield, MCB Bank, Systems Ltd and Meezan Bank, which cumulatively contributed 253 points to the index’s performance.

As a result, the benchmark index hit an intraday high of 78,709.14 points and a low of 77,987.83. However, it settled at 78,105.98 after gaining 228.56 points or 0.29pc on a day-on-day basis.

The overall trading volume inched down 2.16pc to 591.06 million shares. The traded value, however, rose 0.60pc to Rs20.10bn on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Kohinoor Spinning (91.01m shares), Yousaf Weaving (65.31m shares), WorldCall Tele­com (60.62m shares), Tele­card Limited (24.08m shares) and Air Link Comm­unication (23.38m shares).

The shares registering the most significant increa­ses in their share prices in absolute terms were Hallmark Com­pany (Rs48.97), Pak Engine­ering (Rs33.87), Leiner Pak Gelatine (Rs32.97), Ferozsons Lab (Rs28.10) and Exide Pakistan (Rs20.56).

The companies registering significant decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were PIA Holding Ltd [B] (Rs84.87), Nestle Pakistan (Rs47.50), Rafhan Maize (Rs34.60), Sazgar Engineering Works Ltd (Rs31.08) and Bata Pakistan (Rs28.31).

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2024