KARACHI: The KSE-100 Index managed to recover from a substantial intra-day loss of around 1,300 points following the Supreme Court’s ruling on reserved seats, closing the session nearly unchanged on Friday.

The benchmark index began the day on a positive note, reaching an intra-day high of 80,321.69 — some 330 points higher than the previous close — within the initial hours.

However, strong selling pressure ensued after the Supreme Court announced its decision on reserved seats, taking the index down to a low of 78,611.68 points. A late-session buying spree then brought the KSE-100 back to near its starting point.

The benchmark index finally closed at 79,944.09 points, noting a marginal overnight decline of 48.26 points or 0.06 per cent.

“Volatile session was observed today, where the index at one point declined by 1,380 points or -1.73pc after the Supreme Court announced its verdict in the reserved seats case in favour of PTI,” the brokerage house Topline Securities said in a report.

“However, recovery was observed during the latter hours of trade as investors factored in that the PML-N ruling collation still has 62pc representation in the National Assembly,” it added.

Major positive contribution to the index came from HUBC, OGDC, FFC, PSO and BAHL, as they cumulatively contributed 384 points; whereas HBL, FFBL, EFERT, SRVI and BAFL lost value to weigh down on the index by 415 points, the brokerage house said.

On Friday, the trading volume (the number of shares that changed hands during a given day) jumped to 437.32 million from 389.02m on Thursday. The traded value rose to Rs23.48bn from Rs20.92bn in the previous session.

Fauji Fert Bin Qasim was the volume leader with 45.36m shares, followed by K-Electric Ltd with 33.09m shares, and WorldCall Telecom with 29.22m shares.

Of the shares of 442 companies traded on Friday, 155 increased, 243 dropped and 44 remained unchanged.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2024