Staff Reporter
Karachi
Bulls staged a comeback at the bourse on Wednesday after giving in to the pressure to sell earlier and pushed the benchmark index above 42,000 points.
In the morning, the market opened lower and fell sharply in early trading. Some stability emerged in midday trading, but the market oscillated between red and green territories throughout the session.
At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 37.06 points, or 0.09%, to settle at 42,022.25 points.
Selling pressure built again in Pakistan State Oil (PSO), Hascol Petroleum and UBL by the close of the session, which otherwise registered buying activity.
Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) and Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) also faced stock selling on the back of a significant decline in crude oil prices.
The technology sector posted highest volumes of 172.9 million shares, followed by oil and gas marketing companies (83.2 million) and refineries (64.8 million).
Individually, stocks that contributed positively to the index included HBL (+31 points), TRG Pakistan (+20 points), National Foods (+18 points), Lucky Cement (+14 points) and Jubilee Life Insurance (+12 points).
Stocks that contributed negatively were Oil and Gas Development Company (-31 points), Hubco (-14 points), UBL (-14 points), Pakistan Petroleum (-14 points) and Mari Petroleum (-11 points).
JS Global analyst Maaz Mulla said the market remained volatile throughout the day, touching intraday high and low of +211 and -374 points respectively. Traded value stood at $128 million while volumes came in at 707 million shares, down 20%.
The refinery sector gained ground where National Refinery (+4.6%), Attock Refinery (+1.7%), Pakistan Refinery (+3.4%) and Byco Petroleum (+10%) closed higher.
