Stocks inch up in range-bound trading
KARACHI: Bulls fought bears on Wednesday in a range-bound session on the Pakistan Stock Exchange.
Arif Habib Ltd said the index traded within a narrow band due to the investors’ concerns about rising political noise and the continuous hammering of the rupee against the dollar. The benchmark moved sideways a volatile session, with decent main-board volumes.
The national currency closed at 234.32 per dollar after depreciating 1.02 per cent from a day ago. Analysts believe the rupee is losing value owing to high inflation in the United States, which is strengthening the dollar in the global markets.
“The highlight of the day was massive volumes of over 11 million shares in the Hub Power Company Ltd where market gossip was that the company may announce a special dividend after getting the tranche of likely payment to (independent power producers) related to CPEC by the government next week,” said Topline Securities.
As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 42,011.82 points, up 10.48 points or 0.02pc from a day ago.
The trading volume increased 32.1pc to 156.6 million shares while the traded value went up 69.1pc to $27.9m on a day-on-day basis.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included TRG Pakistan Ltd (16.74m shares), K-Electric Ltd (14.84m shares), the Hub Power Company Ltd (11.15m shares), Cnergyico PK Ltd (10.97m shares) and Hascol Petroleum Ltd (8.58m shares).
Sectors that contributed to the index performance were technology (70.5 points), power (54.4 points), exploration and production (23.9 points), leather and tanneries (9.8 points) and textile (8.2 points).
Companies registering the biggest increase in their share prices in absolute terms were Sanofi-Aventis Pakistan Ltd (Rs36.62), Premium Textile Mills Ltd (Rs34.39), Service Industries Ltd (Rs20.39), Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (Rs12.11) and Dawood Lawrencepur Ltd (Rs9.83).
Shares that declined the most in rupee terms were Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs87), Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs60), the Thal Industries Corporation Ltd (Rs23.47), Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs22) and Gatron Industries Ltd (Rs20).
Foreign investors remained net buyers as they purchased shares worth $1.8m.
Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2022