KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) opened the week on a positive note, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining 176 points to close at 43,540.
In a lacklustre, range-bound session, the index touched the day’s low of 43,312 points early on and a high of 43,621 points towards the session’s close.
In all, 116 million shares worth Rs 5.3 billion were traded on the exchange. Of the 377 traded scrips, 182 advanced, 180 declined and 15 remained unchanged. The chemical sector dominated trading by a significant margin, with 34.5m shares traded.
The stocks started day on positive note and added 57 points to reach 43420 level in early trading. The Pakistan Stock Exchange remained bullish till midday and gained 133 points to take the tally to 43496 level.
Last week, overall, stock market activity remained volatile with the benchmark KSE 100-index ultimately closing at 43,363 points, up by a mere 0.8% on week-on-week (WoW) basis.
Although volumes improved by 15 percent on a WoW basis (175m vis-a-vis 152m in the previous week), ADTO declined by 9pc WoW to $55m indicating bulk of activity in small and mid-cap sectors. Despite closing in the green zone, overall volatility persisted in key large cap sectors such as E&Ps (+1.0% WoW), commercial banks (+0.2% WoW), fertilizers (-0.5% WoW) and OMCs (+1.7% WoW) etc. Foreign investors remained on the sidelines with net selling of $10.4m during the week which was mostly absorbed by local mutual funds (net buying of $6.3m) amidst improving liquidity. Most of the selling by foreign investors was seen in the banking, oil marketing and technology and communications sectors.