KARACHI: The overnight positive momentum continued on the Pakistan Stock Exchange in the first half of trading on Friday as investors’ participation remained strong in the cement sector.
However, profit-selling shaved off some of the gains later on owing to the further weakening of the rupee against the dollar, said Arif Habib Ltd. The traded volume remained decent in the main-board shares, it added.
The local currency, which has been shedding value for nearly a week, lost 1.21 per cent to close at 228.18 against the greenback. Another dampener was the weekly inflation data, which recorded the change in the prices of essential items at 42.7pc on a year-on-year basis for the week ending on Sept 8.
As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,948.16 points, up 123.37 points or 0.29pc from a day ago.
The trading volume increased 34.9pc to 146.6 million shares while the traded value went up 62.4pc to $31.3m on a day-on-day basis.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included TRG Pakistan Ltd (15.09m shares), Kot Addu Power Company Ltd (12.8m shares), Engro Fertilisers Ltd (7.32m shares), Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (6.39m shares) and Fauji Cement Company Ltd (5.27m shares).
Sectors that contributed positively to the index performance were technology (51.8 points), fertiliser (37.7 points), banking (29.5 points), cement (17.7 points) and exploration and production (13.1 points).
Companies registering the biggest increase in their share prices in absolute terms were Unilever Pakistan Foods Ltd (Rs500), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs40), The Thal Industries Corporation Ltd (Rs20.61), Siemens Pakistan Engineering Ltd (Rs13.33) and Punjab Oil Mills Ltd (Rs10.55).
Shares that declined the most in rupee terms were Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs63.10), Bata Pakistan Ltd (Rs40), Premium Textile
Ltd (Rs38.30), Gatron Industries Ltd (Rs32.16) and Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs29).
Foreign investors remained net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $1.6m.
Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2022
