KARACHI: Pakistani shares turned in a flat performance on Friday despite a bullish beginning in the continuation of a two-day winning streak, but the trading became choppy in the final hours as some investors chose to profit-taking amid growing uncertainty on the economic and political fronts.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said early gains were wiped out by concerns about surging power tariffs inviting industrial closures and the falling rupee.

He added that selling pressure due to the near-closing of earnings season and futures rollover also contributed to a choppy performance.

Topline Securities Ltd said the benchmark index largely traded in a positive zone during the session. However, some profit-taking was observed towards closing hours.

The pharmaceutical sector remained in the limelight where eight companies out of 12 listed gained to close at their respective upper circuit.

However, the KSE-100 index closed the session in the green with a meagre gain of 8.01 points or 0.001pc to 78,801.43 day-on-day.

The trading volume fell 15.15pc to 682.40 million shares. The traded value, however, rose 7.02pc to Rs18.16bn on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Kohinoor Spinning Mills Ltd (81.71m shares), K-Elec­tric (71.84m shares), Pace Pakistan (36.73m shares), WorldCall Telecom (34.07m shares) and First Nat’l Equities (23.48m shares).

The shares registering the most significant increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Unilever Pakistan Foods Ltd (Rs323.00), Hoechst Pakistan Ltd (Rs172.40), Lucky Core Industries (Rs75.87), Nestle Pakistan (Rs75.00) and Abbott Laboratories (Rs72.74).

The companies registering significant decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were Bata Pakistan (Rs25.24), Philip Morris (Rs24.43), Pakis­tan Tobacco (Rs21.23), Pakistan Services Ltd (Rs19.01) and Mari Petroleum (Rs17.22).

Foreign investors remained net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.25m.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2024