KARACHI: The stock market closed on Wednesday with a gain of 171 points in mixed trading activities during the day.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 46,458 points as against 46,287 points showing an increase of 171.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the key decisions to be taken at today’s ECC Meeting kept the interest alive at the bourse with PSO contributing positively to the index, supported by a surge in Cement sector stocks.
Technology stocks continued uptrend in today’s session, which helped the index post decent gains.
Overall, the index went up by 411 points during the session, but profit booking in E&P and Banks brought the net gain to 171 points by the end of session.
Rollover activity has been smoothly transitioning from January to February Futures contract.
Similar positive interest is otherwise witnessed in the ongoing book building of Panther Tyres, which is indicative of strong investor sentiment.
Among scrips, ANL topped the volumes with 40.2 million shares, followed by PIBTL (39.6 million) and TRG (37 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology (+84 points), Cement (+76 points), Pharma (+23 points), Fertilizer (+22 points) and E&P (+17 points).
Volumes increased from 603.2 million shares to 610.8 million shares (+1 percent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 8 percent to reach US$ 180.6 million as against US$ 166.9 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include ANL, PIBTL, TRG, HASCOL and FCCL, which formed 30 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include TRG (+80 points), MARI (+25 points), FFC (+23 points), LUCK (+22 points) and FCCL (+20 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include BAHL (-34 points), COLG (-17 points), UBL (-13 points), PPL (-11 points) and PAKT (-10 points).
