KARACHI: The stocks observed volatile trading on Tuesday owing to surge in the cases of Omicron – the new variant of COVID-19.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 45,881.1 points as against previous day’s closing of 45,887.6 points, showing a decrease of 6.5 points.
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Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market remained volatile today due to rapid surge in the Covid-19 cases as within the past 10 days positivity rate has jumped from 1.08 percent to 3.66 percent showing an increase of 338.9 percent since the start of the New Year.
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Profit taking was witnessed across the board. However, rally in banking sector was observed due to the expectation of foreign inflows. Activity continued to remain side-ways as market witnessed hefty volumes in the 3rd tier stocks.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (-31 points), E&P (-28 points), Technology & Communication (-20 points), Power (-10 points) and Tobacco (-10 points).
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Volumes decreased from 356.9 million shares to 339.1 million shares (-5.0 per cent DoD). Traded value also decreased by 17.9 per cent to reach US$ 55.2 million as against US$ 67.2 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include WTL, HASCOL, UNITYR3, TRG and HUMNL.
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