164-point rally tosses index above 43,000 level

KARACHI: The stock market witnessed a range-bound session on Wednesday with the KSE-100 index moving within a band of 352 points owing to rising domestic political noise coupled with escalating global commodity prices, according to Topline Securities.

The benchmark opened on a positive note as investors welcomed the decision by the central bank’s monetary policy committee to maintain the status quo with regard to the key interest rate.

However, profit-taking kicked in when the index touched the intraday high of 339 points. Afterwards, the benchmark receded to the intraday low of minus 13 points.

At the end of trading, the KSE-100 index gained 164.61 points or 0.38 per cent on a day-on-day basis to close at 43,042.96 points.

The trading volume decreased 18.75pc to 226.1 million shares while the traded value went down 14.81pc to Rs6.06 billion on a day-on-day basis.

Sectors that contributed the highest number of points to the benchmark index included technology and communication (74.61 points), fertiliser (63.03 points), oil and gas exploration (18.1 points), cement (12.52 points) and auto parts and accessories (5.79 points).

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Ghani Global Holdings Ltd (12.79m shares), Pakistan Inter­national Bulk Terminal Ltd (12.53m shares), TPL Properties Ltd (11.13m shares), TeleCard Ltd (10.75m shares) and TPL Corporation Ltd (10.65m shares).

Shares contributing positively to the index included Systems Ltd (47.56 points), Engro Fertilisers Ltd (26.4 points), TRG Pakistan Ltd (24.26 points), Engro Corpor­ation Ltd (23.13 points) and Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (18.22 points).

Stocks that took away the maximum number of points from the index included Lucky Cement (25.42 points), Bank Alfalah (13.21 points), Bank AL Habib (11.46 points), Habib Metropolitan Bank (7.60 points) and PIBTL (5.45 points).

In percentage terms, shares recording the largest increases were Gadoon Textile (7.41pc), Maple Leaf (5.01pc), Pioneer Cement (4.12pc), Systems Ltd (3.86pc) and ICI Holdings Ltd (3.86pc).