Despite Asad Umar’s exit, KSE-100 manages to rise

Benchmark index gains 59.29 points to settle at 36,811.86

KARACHI: The stock market rebounded on Thursday as investors accumulated bank stocks after previous day’s sell-off and despite finance czar Asad Umar’s resignation.

The KSE-100 index opened on a positive note, but it continued to oscillate between red and black zones throughout the day. The State Bank of Pakistan’s statement regarding the Treasury Single Account helped the index make a decent recovery, however, it spiralled downwards after Asad Umar’s removal as finance minister.

The index dived 333 points and later made a quick recovery as investors bought banking sector stocks.

At the end of trading, the benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded an increase of 59.29 points, or 0.16%, to settle at 36,811.86.

Topline Securities, in its report, stated that the stock market experienced a volatile session as the index hit an intra-day low of 36,419 points. “The market staged a recovery before the end of trading session despite Asad Umar’s resignation from the post of finance minister.”



Commercial bank, power generation/distribution, and oil and gas exploration sectors led the recovery as they added 98 points to the index. The cement sector continued to remain under pressure on concerns over the price outlook, erasing 47 points from the index.

Overall, trading volumes increased to 216.2 million shares compared with Wednesday’s tally of 172.9 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs5.2 billion.

Shares of 323 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 118 stocks closed higher, 185 declined and 20 remained unchanged.

The Bank of Punjab (XD) was the volume leader with 53.3 million shares, losing Rs0.92 to close at Rs11.62. It was followed by Unity Foods (R) with 41.8 million shares, gaining Rs0.15 to close at Rs1.10 and Unity Foods with 12.6 million shares, gaining Rs0.21 to close at Rs11.85.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs75.7 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 19^th, 2019.

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