KARACHI: Breaking a bitter bearish trend, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Wednesday opened on positive note and gained 496 points to take the tally to 42478.73 points level in early trading.
On Tuesday, the PSX continued its downward trend on second consecutive day as benchmark 100-shares index lost another 170 points and closed at 41,983 points.
Top 5 index point contributors included ENGRO (up 1.9%), DAWH (3%), BAHL (2.8%), PPL (1.2%) & EFERT (2.8%) which added 113 points. On the contrary, LUCK (down 3.4%), DGKC (4.8%), FFC (3.2%), SEARL (4.2%) & HUBC (1.3%) led to decline of 165 points.
Recovery came from upside in the heavy weight commercial banking scripts including HBL (up 0.5%), ABL ( 4.9%), UBL (0.9%) and NBP (up 0.7%). Amongst steel companies, ASTL (up 3.9%), INIL (0.1%), and ISL (up 0.9%) closed in the green zone as investors picked these stocks at attractive prices.
Volumes improved by 42%, standing at 217 million shares for the day as compared to 153 million of the previous day. Traded value also increased to Rs12b/$115m.