KARACHI: The first trading session of the week began on a positive note as shares in the oil and gas exploration sector rose on the back of a rally in global oil prices, Topline Securities said on Monday.

The KSE-100 index made an intraday high of 46,970 points before profit-taking pushed the benchmark down to the intraday low of 46,419 points.

According to Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation, stocks closed lower on investors’ concerns about the rupee’s instability. In addition, uncertainty over the terms of the International Monetary Fund’s loan programme coupled with a growing circular debt crisis led the index to close on a bearish note.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 46,539.59 points, down 61.95 points or 0.13 per cent from a day ago.

The trading volume decreased 30.1pc to 255.6 million shares while the traded value went up 5.6pc to Rs9.64 billion on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included G3 Technologies Ltd (21.2m shares), Cnergyico PK Ltd (17.78m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (15.45m shares), Oil and Gas development Company Ltd (14.23m shares) and Ghani Global Holdings Ltd (12.25m shares).

Sectors that took away the highest number of points from the benchmark index included commercial banking (121.9 points), technology and communication (45.32 points), cement (39.84 points), investment banking (16.82 points) and textile composite (14.36 points).

Shares contributing most negatively to the index included Systems Ltd (28.57 points), Engro Polymer and Chemicals Ltd (28.53 points), Lucky Cement Ltd (20.69 points), United Bank Ltd (18.99 points) and Habib Metropolitan Bank Ltd (18.99 points).

Stocks that contributed most positively to the index included Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (95.16 points), Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (90.8 points), Fauji Fertiliser Company Ltd (36.65 points), The Hub Power Company Ltd (23.32 points) and Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (14.95 points).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.23m.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2022