In the morning, the market remained on a strong footing and maintained the upward momentum for almost throughout the session, touching the intra-day high of 161,881 towards the close of trading. Its low for the day was 160,406 reached very early in the day.
KTrade Securities, in its market wrap, wrote that PSX rebounded sharply as the benchmark KSE-100 index gained 1,945 points (+1.22%) to close at 161,538. The recovery was largely fuelled by renewed investor interest in fertiliser, investment banking, oil & gas and cement sectors.
Major index contributors included heavyweights such as Engro Holdings, Fauji Fertiliser, Engro Fertilisers, Oil and Gas Development Company, Pakistan Petroleum and Systems Limited. Despite the upward momentum, the overall market participation remained relatively muted, it said.
Looking ahead, KTrade expected investor sentiment to improve further, contingent on macro and political developments, notably the approval of the 27th Constitutional Amendment, release of next IMF tranche and regional geopolitical events.
Arif Habib Limited (AHL) commented that the KSE-100 index kicked off the week with solid gains of 1.22% to hold the bottom of the current trading range. On the benchmark index, 78 shares rose while 21 fell with Fauji Fertiliser (+2.56%), Engro Fertilisers (+8.52%) and Engro Holdings (+4.46%) contributing the most to index gains.
In contrast, Pakistan Services (-7.22%), United Bank (-0.86%) and AGP Pharma (-1.5%) were the biggest index drags. “Arif Habib Ltd will be kicking off an exciting equity raising season with around seven to eight IPOs (initial public offerings) and/or SPOs (secondary public offerings),” its CEO Shahid Ali Habib announced on X. Sectors include pharmaceutical, oil and gas marketing, automobile, IT, real estate, consumer goods and financial services.
Overall trading volumes increased to 783.3 million shares versus previous tally of 768.8 million. The value of traded shares stood at Rs36.4 billion. Shares of 477 companies were traded. Of these, 292 stocks closed higher, 136 fell and 49 remained unchanged.
First National Equities was the volume leader with trading in 73.7 million shares, rising Rs1.93 to close at Rs21.22. It was followed by Kohinoor Spinning Mills with 54.8 million shares, gaining Rs0.67 to close at Rs7.46 and Bank Makramah with 49.1 million shares, losing Rs0.01 to close at Rs5.60. Foreign investors were net sellers of shares worth Rs737.6 million.