Stocks manage gains despite profit-selling

KARACHI: Stock market on Friday showed some bullish signs as the KSE-100 index added 75.45 points, or 0.17 per cent, to close at 45,305.63 amid expectations of better corporate earning reports next week.

However, the volume plunged due to short trading hours in the weekend session, but index managed to close in the green despite profit-selling as investor sentiments remained choppy in the wake of TLP protests and rising Covid infection cases.

Arif Habib Ltd in its report stated that the market inched up on the brink of earnings season, with benchmark index hitting intraday high of 241 points.

Financial results of key companies are due in the coming week, which kept the interest alive although trading volumes remained thin. Cyclicals including cement, steel and autos performed relatively better. Small caps were favoured by investors in comparison with blue chips, whereby Ghani Global, which fell on Thursday, bounced back.

On the other hand, Telecard Ltd continued moving upwards despite the meteoric rise it has seen in the recent past.

The trading volume plunged by 50pc to 173 million shares and the traded value also declined by 31pc to $57.2m as against $82.5m the previous day.

Ghani Global Holdings, Telecard, TRG, Worldcall Ltd and Ghani Global Glass contributed 47pc to the total turnover. Market capitalisation stood Rs7.904 trillion.

Sectors contributing to the performance include banks (27 points), technology (19 points), fertiliser (18 points), autos (13 points) and auto parts (10 points).Stocks that contributed positively to the index include Engro (16 points), TRG (15 points), HBL (9 points), Hubco (7 points) and PSMC (7 points).

Scrips that negatively contributed to index included PAKT (11 points), DGKC (7 points), FCCL (5 points), PPL (5 points) and FFBL (4 points). As many as 366 companies shares were traded with values of 207 recorded gain and 139 sustained losses whereas 20 scrips did not show any change.