Pakistan bourse closes in red zone after range-bound session

KARACHI: The Pakistan equity market remained range-bound on Monday, where higher-than-expected Cinsumer Price Index (CPI) figures for July 2022 resulted in profit-taking by the investors, analysts said.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the benchmark KSE-100 Index opened in the positive zone but investors’ activity remained sideways although rupee snapped its losing streak against the dollar.

“Volumes remained dry in the main board; on the contrary, decent volumes were witnessed in the 3rd tier stocks,” he added.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange KSE-100 shares Index shed 0.19 per cent, or 74.40 points, to close at 40,075.96 points. The KSE-30 shares Index shed 0.28 per cent, or 42.75 points, to close at 15,189.69 points.

An analyst at Pearl Securities said that the market opened in a green zone as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is likely to start the process for releasing the 7th and 8th loan tranches later this week.

“Moreover, the rupee at the interbank witnessed a slight appreciation against the dollar. However, profit taking started to take place as the CPI figures came up higher than market consensus to clock-in at 24.9 per cent for July 2022 which lowered the sentiments at the bourse,” he added.

Going forward, the analysts expect the market to take direction on the back of political and economic news inflows, hence recommending investors to book profits at a higher level.

As many as 309 scrips were active of which 101 advanced, 182 declined and 26 remained unchanged.

The ready market volumes stood at 110.42 million shares, compared with the turnover of 170.27 million shares in the last trading session.

The companies which reflected the highest gains included Nestle Pakistan up Rs400 to close at Rs6,290/share, Colgate Palm up Rs149.96 to close at Rs2,149.46/share.

The companies which reflected the most losses included Bata (Pak) down Rs162 to close at Rs2,010/share, and Premium Textile down Rs37.38 to close at Rs635.01/share.

The highest volumes were witnessed in TPL Properties with a turnover of 12.72 million shares. The scrip gained 17 paisas to close at Rs17.82/share, followed by TRG Pakistan with a turnover of 9.21 million shares. It shed 12 paisas to close at Rs91.95/share. WorldCall Telecom remained the third with a turnover of 8.63 million shares. It shed 1 paisa to finish at Rs1.17/share.