KARACHI: The equities market witnessed another slow session on Thursday as the rupee continued its dev­aluation against the dollar.

Arif Habib Ltd said the stock market traded sideways after opening in the positive zone.

The rupee closed at 225.42 per dollar after shedding 0.89 per cent of its value against the US currency. The dollar has become expensive by Rs4 in the last two days alone.

Economic and political unrest also kept stock investors on the sidelines. Poli­tical temperature rose after the Islamabad High Court decided to indict former prime minister Imran Khan in a contempt-of-court case as Mr Khan had earlier passed controversial rem­arks against an additional district and sessions judge.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,824.79 points, up 58.74 points or 0.14pc from a day ago.

The trading volume increased 17pc to 108.7 million shares while the traded value went up 39.1pc to $19.5m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (8.4m shares), Lotte Chemical Pakistan Ltd (6.73m shares), Hascol Petroleum Company Ltd (5.51m shares), Pioneer Cement Ltd (4.15m shares) and Fauji Foods Ltd (4.06m shares).

Sectors that contributed positively to the index performance were cement (96.5 points), technology (20.8 points), textile (9.7 points), chemical (9.2 points) and glass and ceramics (6.5 points).

Companies registering the biggest increase in their share prices in absolute terms were Gatron Indust­ries Ltd (Rs28.91), The Thal Industries Corporation Ltd (Rs16.13), Khyber Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs11.25), Fa­­zal Cloth Mills Ltd (Rs11.22) and Kohat Cement Company Ltd (Rs8.19).

Shares that declined the most in rupee terms were Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs55.44), Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs34), Atlas Honda Ltd (Rs12.69), Al-Ghazi Tractors Ltd (Rs11.88) and Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs11.01).

Foreign investors remai­ned net sellers as they off­loaded shares worth $0.24m.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2022