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Thursday March 28, 2024

Stocks end flat after seesaw session

By our correspondents
December 13, 2017

Stocks seesawed in highly volatile trade on Tuesday as investors couldn't decide whether to be cheered by rupee’s recent fall or worried that political uncertainty in the country is unlikely to end soon, dealers said.

“The benchmark index witnessed a volatile day where market crashed to another fresh 2017 intra-day low before value investors cherry picked stocks with attractive valuations which led the index to recover and close slightly in green zone,” Topline Securities said in a post market note.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange's (PSX) KSE 100-share index gained 0.11 percent or 43.41 points to close at 38,525.11 points. The highest index of the day remained at 38,612 points while the lowest level of the day was recorded at 37,736.46 points. KSE-30 Index also increased 107.34 points or 0.26 percent to 19,273.38 points against 19,166.04 points. Turnover increased 66 million shares to 195.49 million shares against 129.42 million shares, trading value rose to Rs8.68 billion from Rs5.94 billion while market capital expanded to Rs8.24 trillion from Rs8.22 trillion in the last session. Out of 359 companies’ active in the session, 106 closed in green, 235 in red while 18 remained unchanged.

The index lost ground within the first half hour of trade as wider market, barring oils, deepened losses on ongoing political noise as a deadlock between the government and opposition parties over Delimitation Bill raised concerns on timely holding of general elections scheduled in August 2018. Later value buyers made entry and cherry picked index names with attractive valuations.

Oils stood strong throughout with investors not only tracking gains in global crude but also currency depreciation as rupee shed another two percent against greenback in the interbank market. This also generated interest in Hub Power (up 3.0 percent) as it topped the leaderboard and contributed most points to the benchmark index.

Analyst Ali Raza at Elixir Securities said though the market made sharp recovery, “we continue to see volatile market in the near-term with political noise mainly dictating sentiments”. Highest increase was recorded in shares of Nestle Pakistan XD, which rose Rs245 to Rs12,440/share, followed by Pak Tobacco XD that increased Rs56 to Rs1,966/share. Major decline was noted in shares of Rafhan Maize, which fell Rs200 to Rs6,500/share, followed by Sapphire Textile that decreased Rs89.94 to Rs1,709.05/share.

Significant turnover was recorded in stocks of TRG Pak Ltd, Crescent Star (R), Bank Al-Falah, K-Electric Ltd, Pak Elektron, Azgard Nine, Habib Bank Ltd, JS Bank Ltd, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd XD and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited. TRG Pak Ltd remained the volume leader with 18.61 million shares with a decrease of 42 paisas to Rs31.72/share. It was followed by Crescent Star (R) with 16.02 million shares with an increase of 39 paisas to Re0.40/share.  Shares’ turnover in the future contracts rose to 46.43 million shares from 29.44 million shares traded in the previous session.