In line with the global market, the local bourse also went on a roller coaster ride at the start and then plunged 761 points or 1.84 percent as this year’s US Presidential Elections took unexpected turns on Wednesday.
‘’Global markets tumbled amid prospects of Trump’s victory in the US presidential race with Asian stocks going down, weakening of US Dollar and gold prices rallying as investors braced for impact amid uncertainty about his [Trump’s] economic policies,’’ said an Intermarket Securities report.
However, after Trump’s victory speech which gave some comfort to the investors, value hunters re-entered the market and subsequently pushed the bourse back into green.
Towards the end of the day the KSE-100 Index benchmark finally gained 89.72 points or 0.21 percent to close at of 42,203.63.
Bank of Punjab (+5.05 percent) led the table with an astounding 108 million shares traded i.e. 37 percent volume of the 100-Index. Telecard Limited (+6.28 percent), Sui Southern Gas Company (+2.45 percent) and The Resource Group Limited (-0.49 percent) churned 208 million shares out of 552 million shares traded in the All-Share Index on Wednesday.
Bank of Punjab stood out as the volume leader with as many as 108 million shares changing hands. The bank ended the day in green at a per share price of Rs20.37, up Rs0.85 from last day’s closing price of Rs19.52. It was followed by Telecard Limited with 43 million shares traded, up Rs0.36 and The Resource Group (TRG) Limited up Rs1.17 with 30 million shares traded.
As regards the contribution to the 100-Index, Packages Limited (+5 percent), Habib Bank Limited (+0.53 percent), Mari Petroleum Company (+3.54 percent), Fauji Cement Company Limited (+2.28 percent) and Kot Addu Power Company (+1.79 percent) added a total of 79 points. On the contrary Lucky Cement (-1.50 percent), Oil and Gas Development Company (-1.41 percent) and Pakistan State Oil (-1.17 percent) took away 63 points from the index.
Market participation remained flattish and clocked in at 296 million shares compared to 289 million for the previous session. Similarly, daily traded value for the benchmark index was also flat at $150 million – up 0.3 percent against the previous day’s value.
‘’Technically speaking, the 100-index has been testing the same rising trend-line resistance of late that has been in play since June, 2016. Going forward, we expect the 100-index to keep making attempts at breaking past the hurdle,’’ concluded the IMS Report.
