KARACHI: The share market gained 148 points on Tuesday despite lack of trading activities and lower volume.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 40,653 points as against 40,505 points showing an increase of 148 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market traded in the positive zone for the entire session, however, activity remained lackluster for lack of clear triggers for the market.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is expected to announce monetary policy in the coming week, which gives investors a reason to switch portfolio positions per their views on policy rate.
Banking sector stocks, especially UBL and MCB, stole the limelight. E&P sector saw selling pressure after making a stride earlier in the session, which followed the climb in international crude oil prices.
Volumes remained thin overall, where none of the top volume leaders could cross 10 million shares in today’s trading.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (+93 points), E&P (+52 points), Cement (+22 points), Chemical (-21 points) and Power (-12 points).
Volumes continued the declining trend and further slashed to 150.3 million shares as against 243 million shares the day before (-38 percent DoD).
Average traded value also declined by 20 percent to reach US$ 40 million as against US$ 49.9 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include TRG, BIPL, SNBL, PRL and UNITY, which formed 29 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include UBL (+51 points), POL (+22 points), PPL (+20 points), MARI (+15 points) and LUCK (+13 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include COLG (-28 points), SYS (-14 points), HUBC (-13 points), FFC (-11 points) and OGDC (-5 points).
