KARACHI: The stock market on Wednesday continued its winning streak for the seventh straight session on higher remittances, briefly crossing 86,000 intraday on easing political tensions and specula-tions of robust corporate earnings.
However, despite aggressive foreign selling, the index scaled an all-time high with meagre gains.
Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks hit a new high aided by banking scrips after the State Bank of Pakistan revised per-party exposure limits for small and medium enterprises and 29pc year-on-year increase to $2.8bn in September.
He said the market witnessed a midsession selling on falling global crude oil prices and foreign outflows.
Topline Securities Ltd said the KSE-100 index experienced significant volatility, peaking at 86,451 and dipping to 85,444, mainly due to profit-taking and the index’s inability to sustain gains above 86,000. However, institutional buying supported the index for positive closing.
As a result, the benchmark index posted a moderate gain of 5.3 points to close at 85,669.28.
Key contributors to the index included MCB Bank, Lucky Core Industries, Bank Al-Habib, Hub Power, and Habib Bank, which collectively added 292 points.
Conversely, Fauji Fertiliser, Engro Fertiliser, and Pakistan Oilfield shaved off 215 points.
The trading volume was up 17.66 per cent to 596.05 million shares. However, the traded value fell 5.17pc to Rs31.34bn day-on-day.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included K-Electric (55.79m shares), Hub Power Company (39.66m shares), Pakistan Telecom (32.22m shares), Bank of Punjab (27.40m shares) and WorldCall Telecom (26.62m shares).
The shares registering the most significant increases in their prices in absolute terms were Lucky Core Industries (Rs114.32), Hallmark Company (Rs102.50), Pakistan Engineering Company Ltd (Rs76.52), Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (Rs42.89) and Khyber Textile (Rs34.63).
The companies that suffered major losses in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan (Rs75.24), Hoechst Pakistan (Rs54.13), Sapphire Fibres (Rs24.11), Leiner Pak Gelatine (Rs21.56) and Pakistan Oilfields (Rs15.62).
The foreign investors remained net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $11.23m.
However, mutual funds maintained their buying spree, picking shares worth $3.50m.
Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2024
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