Staff Reporter Karachi
The stock market shed the gloom of previous session as the KSE-100 index rose nearly 180 points on bets of status quo in the monetary policy and closed near the 45,000-point mark.
The stock market kicked off trading on a positive note and remained in the green for most of the first session. However, it receded after trading resumed in the second half, and the KSE-100 index dived.
Bears and bulls wrestled for control of the market throughout the day with the latter maintaining a strong hold.
At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 177.22 points, or 0.4%, to settle at 44,901.31 points.
The market followed the trend witnessed the previous day by retreating 331 points in the first session, but it bounced back strongly and added a total of 448 points. The index closed up by 177 points.
Sectors contributing to the performance included power (+49 points), technology (+42 points), oil and gas marketing companies (+42 points), refinery (+27 points) and pharmaceutical (+22 points).
Individually, stocks that contributed positively to the index included HBL (+60 points), Pakistan State Oil (+31 points), TRG Pakistan (+25 points), Hubco (+22 points) and Systems Limited (+17 points).
Stocks that contributed negatively were Oil and Gas Development Company (-27 points), UBL (-24 points), Indus Motor (-19 points), Fauji Fertiliser (-16 points) and Bank AL Habib (-14 points).
Overall trading volumes fell to 484.6 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 554.1 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs21.8 billion.
