Stocks close in green on upbeat economic data

KARACHI: The Pakistan bourse on Thursday showed slight recovery led by selected scrips on upbeat data of $22.55 billion exports (July-February) of 2022 along with Prime Minister’s relief package and incentives for new industry.

“The global stocks recovery and surging global crude oil prices played a catalyst role in the bullish close,” Ahsan Mehanti at Arib Habib Corp said.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange KSE-100 shares Index gained 0.03 per cent, or 11.60 points, to close at 44,525.72 points. The KSE-30 shares Index gained 0.28 per cent, or 49.07 points, to close at 17,409.86 points.

As many as 358 scrips were active of which 116 advanced, 209 declined and 33 remained unchanged.

The ready market volumes stood at 188.66 million shares, compared with the turnover of 235.03 million shares in the last trading session.

The trade deficit widened by 82.2 per cent during the first eight months (July-February) of the fiscal year 2021/22 to $31.959 billion, compared with $17.535 billion during the same period of 2020/21.

“The equities witnessed a mixed trend on the back of deadlock in Russia-Ukraine tension. The KSE-100 Index saw buying interest in the oil and gas sector’s stocks due to a rally in the global oil prices which provided support to the index,” an analyst at Pearl Securities said.

The companies which reflected the highest gains included Rafhan Maize up Rs200 to close at Rs11,500/share, and Sanofi-Aventis up Rs61 to close at Rs960/share.

The companies that reflected the most losses included Nestle Pakistan down Rs205 to close at Rs5,540/share, and Sapphire Tex down Rs55.90 to close at Rs923.03/share.

The highest volumes were witnessed in TRG Pak Ltd with a turnover of 15.14 million shares. The scrip gained 41 paisas to close at Rs79.13/share, followed by Oil & Gas Development Company with a turnover of 11.65 million shares. It gained Rs1.99 to close at Rs94.98/share. Fauji Cement remained the third with a turnover of 8.87 million shares. It shed 6 paisas to finish at 17.11/share.