KARACHI: (Parliament Times) Â Investors at Pakistan Stock Exchange remained active on both sides, buying and selling, on Wednesday, as the day ended by adding 111 points to the benchmark KSE 100 index that closed positive at 42,404 level. Equities traded listless for most part of the day, swinging between gains and losses, however, selective value buying surge in late afternoon helped benchmark KSE100 index to a positive close. “Wider market traded positive in the opening hours. Index heavy exploration and productions (E&Ps) contributed to gains in early trade over higher global crude, however, other major sectors including financial, cement sectors and fertilizers struggled to find a clear direction and traded lacklustre, seeing limited activity primarily from local institutional investors amid ambiguity over direction of foreign flows,” said Ali Raza, equity analyst at Elixir Securities. Stocks showed recovery led by cement, banking and oil scrips on investor speculations over CPEC projects and surge in global crude prices above $45/barrel. Concerns for foreign outflows and dismal falling FDI data Jul-Oct’16 invited early session pressure. SBP reduction on SLR for Islamic Banks by 4 percent and rising crude prices played a catalyst role for positive close in the late session rally, said Ahsan Mehanti, senior equity analyst. During the trading, retail investors opted to hold back from significant investments over lack of clarity on market direction and domestic politics, hearing of panama case against PM Nawaz’s family. Share price of HASCOL closed at its upper limit of 5 percent following its notice to PSX that Vitol Dubai has exercised its call option to acquire additional 10 percent shares, increasing its shareholding from 15 percent to 25 percent. Overall, volumes increased by 5.4 percent to 385 million shares, while value increased by 11.1 percent Rs 13 billlion/$125 million.
On Tuesday 365 million shares worth Rs 11.7 billion/$1120 million were traded.
WorldCall Telecom moved up to the top of volume leaders list with 37 million shares followed by Japan Power 29 million, Bank of Punjab 22 million, Quice Food 22 million, PIAC 20 million and Dost Steel 19 million.
Shares of 424 companies were actively traded at the bourse on Wednesday out of which prices of 184 ended in green, 209 in red, while 31 ended unchanged.
“Expect volatile and choppy trading again today with investors specially local institutions trading selectively tracking foreign funds activity and keenly following developments on domestic political front,” Raza concluded.
