Stocks close in green over value buying

KARACHI: The Pakistan equity market witnessed a negative session on Wednesday due to the ongoing political noise which created panic among investors by pushing the KSE-100 Index down further.

An analyst at Arif Habib said that the benchmark KSE-100 Index made the intraday low of 594 points and remained in the red zone throughout the day, however in the last trading hour investors opted for value buying which helped the index to close in a positive territory.

“Whereas, the mainboard activity remained dry. On the contrary, hefty volumes were observed in the 3rd tier stocks,” he added.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange KSE-100 shares Index gained 0.15 per cent, or 62.34 points, to close at 42,012.66 points. The KSE-30 shares Index gained 0.07 per cent, or 10.44 points, to close at 15,913.04 points.

As many as 324 scrips were active of which 198 advanced, 103 declined and 23 remained unchanged.

The ready market volumes stood at 240.04 million shares, compared with the turnover of 169.70 million shares in the last trading session.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp said that the stocks showed recovery on reports of a deal between Pakistan and International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the disbursement of $1 billion tranche under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF).

The rumors of the government’s deal with the protestors for calling off the long march also helped the market to recover, while mid-session pressure remained over rupee depreciation and protesters seeking early elections, he added.

The companies which reflected the highest gains included Colgate Palm up Rs47.99 to close at Rs2,199.99/share, Mari Petroleum up Rs26.41 to close at Rs1,612.99/share.

The companies which reflected the most losses included Rafhan Maize down Rs 200 to close at Rs 9,600/share, and Sapphire Fiber down Rs 81.78 to close at Rs1,011.01/share.

The highest volumes were witnessed in Pak Refinery with a turnover of 21.23 million shares. The scrip gained 90 paisa to close at Rs16.64/share, followed by K-Electric Ltd with a turnover of 15.14 million shares. It gained 2 paisas to close at Rs2.52/share. WorldCall Telecom remained the third with a turnover of 13.43 million shares. It gained 8 paisas to finish at Rs1.54/share.