Stocks gain 81 points in narrow range trading

Stocks gain 81 points in narrow range trading

KARACHI: The stock market gained 81 points on Friday while trading in narrow range trading activity during the day. The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 48,239 points as against previous day’s close of 48,158 points, showing an increase of 81 points.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market traded in a narrow range between -135 points and +254 points, closing the session +81 points.

Refineries, Cement, Fertilizer, O&GMCs and Technology sector inched up, which helped index trade in the positive territory.

Concerns of redemption with some mutual funds maintained selling pressure.

Among scrips, HUMNL led the volumes with 88.1 million shares, followed by WTL (76.4 million) and BYCO (70.7 million).

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (77 points), Vanaspati (-12 points), Cement (+58 points), Refinery (+39pst), Technology (+19 points).

Volumes declined from 1117.4 million shares to 750.6 million shares (-33 percent DoD). On the contrary, Average traded value increased by 5 percent to reach US$ 131.8 million as against US$ 124.9 million.

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include HUMNL, WTL, BYCO, UNITY and SILK, which formed 44 percent of total volumes.

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include LUCK (+31 points), NRL (+20 points), POL (+20 points), TRG (+19 points) and FFC (+14 points).

Stocks that contributed negatively include HBL (-63 points), MTL (-15 points), OGDC (-14 points), MCB (-13 points) and UNITY (-12 points).