Equity market gains 121 points in volatile trading

KARACHI: Pakistan equity market gained 121 points on Wednesday in a volatile trading during the day.

The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 45,133 points as against previous day’s closing of 45,012 points, showing an increase of 1201 points.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market remained volatile today due to political unrest and higher commodity prices.

Cement sector remained under pressure due to higher international coal prices.

In banking sector, UBL remained in the limelight due to announcement of tremendous financial result beating market expectations.

In the last trading hour, value hunting was observed which led the recovery in the market. Activity continued to remain side-ways as market witnessed hefty volumes in the 3rd tier stocks.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (+69.3 points), Banks (+48.0 points), Automobile Assembler (+19.1 points), Tobacco (+11.6 points) and Technology (+11.4 points).

Volumes decreased from 227.2 million shares to 186.4 million shares (-18.0 per cent DoD). Traded value also decreased by 10.8 per cent to reach US$ 38.6 million as against US$ 43.3 million.

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include BOP, TELE, WTL, MLCF and TPLP.