E&P and banks scrips lift index by 72 points

• Stocks gain over 70 points to close the session at 47,270.46 points on Monday.
• Trading volume decline from 427.4 million shares to 395.8 million shares.
• Shares of 519 listed companies were traded. At the end of the session, 209 stocks closed in the green, 290in the red.

KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed volatile trading on Monday with the benchmark KSE-100 index recording gains of over 70 points.

The KSE-100 index opened in the positive but oscillated between the intra-day high and low of 47,368.65 and 47,168.76.

Investors looked forward to the announcement of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) monetary policy on Monday (September 20).

On the news front, the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCOE) on Monday approved the Pakistan Oil Refinery Policy 2021.

A report from Arif Habib Limited noted that the market consolidated the gains made in the previous sessions with profit booking in technology, cement, steel and refinery sectors, whereas “the index got some support from banks and power sector.”

“Technology sector saw selling pressure that brought Avanceon and other tech stocks down, despite hitting a historic IPO of Octopus Digital in the previous week,” the report added.

The benchmark KSE-100 index rose 72.17 points or 0.15% on Monday, to close at 47,270.46 points.

Sectors contributing to the performance included banks (+85 points), exploration and production (+21 points), power (+20 points), pharma (+16 points), technology (-44 points) and cement (-17 points).

Volumes declined from 427.4 million shares to 395.8 million shares (-8% day-on-day). Average traded value also declined by 11% to reach $96.3 million as against $108.1 million.

Individually, stocks that contributed positively to the index included UBL (+66 points), HBL (+33 points), AGP (+20 points), Colgate-Palmolive (+18 points) and Hubco (+18 points).

Stocks that contributed negatively were TRG Pakistan (-36 points), Meezan Bank (-35 points), Bank AlHabib (-14 points), Pioneer Cement (-8 points) and Maple Leaf Cement (-8 points).

During the session, shares of 519 listed companies were traded. At the end of the session, 209 stocks closed in the green, 290 in the red, and 20 remained unchanged.

Byco Petroleum was the volume leader with 45 million shares, gaining Rs0.01 to close at Rs9.79. It was followed by Service Fab (R) with 42.1 million shares, gaining Rs0.52 to close at Rs3.30, and TPL Properties with 41.1 million shares, gaining Rs2.94 to close at Rs61.40.