KARACHI: The stock exchange ended with gain of 47 points on Wednesday as market traded in narrow band.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 33,524 points as against 33,477 points showing an increase of +47 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market continued trading in a narrow band between +128 points and -137 points and closed the session +47 points.
Chemical sector contributed positively to the index, whereby LOTCHEM, EPCL, DOL hit upper circuits due to better expectation of financial results of the outgoing quarter.
Quarterly financial results are due to be announced in October. Besides, buying activity was also observed in O&GMCs and small cap banks.
The index braced selling pressure largely from Steel and Cement sectors, which are the subject of profit booking and have shown decent price growth since recent lows.
Chemical sector topped the volumes with 48.7 million shares, followed by Cement (26.8 million) and Vanaspati (26.1 million). Among scrips, LOTCHEM led the volumes with 27 million shares followed by UNITY (26 million) and BOP (14 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Pharma (+28 points), E&P (+23 points), Banks (+17 points), Power (+16 points), Chemical (+10 points) and Cement (-48 points).
Volumes declined further from 243 million shares to 237.4 million shares (-2 percent DoD). Average traded value declined from US$ 56.9 million to US$ 40.9 million (-28 percent DoD).
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include LOTCHEM, UNITY, BOP, KEL and EPCL, which formed 36 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include HUBC (+27 points), MARI (+24 points), HBL (+18 points), UBL (+14 points) and POL (+13 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include LUCK (-23 points), MCB (-17 points), DGKC (-14 points), OGDC (-12 points), and NBP (-12 points).
