Bears were defeated in a topsy-turvy session at the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday as the KSE-100 index gained 55 points on the back of bullish global equities after US President Donald Trump’s return to White House from hospital.
Buoyed by the encouraging news, the MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares rose 0.7% to a two-and-a-half-week high with Hong Kong bourse climbing 0.8% and Japan’s Nikkei adding 0.5%.
Taking cue from rising global markets, investors’ sentiment turned positive at the Pakistan bourse and late session buying helped the benchmark index end the day with some gains.
An uptick in international oil prices failed to entice local investors to pour money into the oil sector due to which the exploration and production sector closed with considerable losses.
Earlier, trading kicked off with a short-lived spike, after which the index nosedived close to 500 points in initial hours. The rest of the trading session experienced range bound activity coupled with multiple rises and falls as the index struggled to hold ground.
A buying spree towards the end of the session aided the market in recouping losses and closing in the green zone.
At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 55.01 points, or 0.14%, to settle at 39,127.48 points.
Arif Habib Limited, in its report, stated that the market opened on a positive note despite several negative closings in the past sessions.
After initial buying interest that contributed 277 points to the index, selling pressure emerged that eroded earlier gains and caused a total loss of 504 points. During the session, the index moved in and out of the green zone.
Although international oil prices rebounded approximately 5%, Pakistan’s exploration and production stocks failed to reflect the same.
The cement sector saw active buying activity till the end of the session, which turned the index positive with the addition of 55 points, the report added.
Overall, trading volumes dropped slightly to 406 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 409.9 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs12.4 billion.
Shares of 400 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 236 stocks closed higher, 146 declined and 18 remained unchanged.
Hascol Petroleum was the volume leader with 78.2 million shares, losing Rs0.22 to close at Rs15.85. It was followed by Unity Foods with 36.8 million shares, gaining Rs0.78 to close at Rs14.76 and TRG Pakistan with 29.4 million shares, losing Rs1.08 to close at Rs42.09.
Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs501.4 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.
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