KSE-100 ends flat in topsy-turvy session

By
Business Desk

December 22, 2021

— Reuters/File
— Reuters/File

  • A combination of buying interest and selling pressure made the market swing up and down throughout the day.
  • The market observes cherry-picking and profit-booking at the same time.
  • KSE-100 index crawls downwards by 2.10 points to close at 44,174.97.

KARACHI: Volatility continued at the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Wednesday as the benchmark KSE-100 index closed slightly lower in a topsy-turvy session.

Bulls competed with bears as the market saw cherry-picking and profit-booking at the same time, resulting in a meagre loss of two points by the close of the session.

Earlier, stock trading began with a spike but soon profit-booking erased some of the gains. A combination of buying interest and selling pressure made the market swing up and down throughout the day. Bears emerged dominant in the final hours and pushed the KSE-100 index marginally downwards.

Benchmark KSE-100 index intraday trading curve. — PSX data portal
Benchmark KSE-100 index intraday trading curve. — PSX data portal

Today, the benchmark KSE-100 index crawled downwards by 2.10 points to close at 44,174.97 points.

A report from Arif Habib Limited noted that the market continued to remain choppy ahead of the mini-budget.

“The government had planned to receive the cabinet’s nod to the Supplementary Finance Bill, 2021, so it could slap highly inflationary Rs360 billion in indirect taxes,” it said, adding that profit-taking was witnessed in the first trading hour then market battled between the bulls and bears throughout the day.

The brokerage house added that mainboard volumes remained on a dull note whereas activity continued to remain side-ways as the market witnessed hefty volumes in the third tier stocks.

Sectors contributing to the performance included cement (-28 points), engineering (-14 points), insurance (-11 points) and chemicals (-6 points).

Shares of 339 companies were traded during the session. At the close of trading, 159 scrips closed in the green, 165 in the red, and 15 remained unchanged.

Overall trading volumes dropped to 151.78 million shares compared with Tuesday’s tally of 223.08 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs6.57 billion.

Ghani Global Holdings Limited was the volume leader with 14.2 million shares traded, losing Rs0.40 to close at Rs24.59. It was followed by Unity Foods with 9.1 million shares traded, gaining Rs0.72 to close at Rs27.15 and TRG Pakistan with 8.5 million shares traded, gaining Rs1.29 to close at Rs117.53.