KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed a volatile session on the last trading day of the week, as the indices swung in both directions until finally picking up the upward path to end in green.
Foreign investors closed the preceding session on Thursday as the net buyers with a net inflow of $2.36 million. Contrary to the declining trend witnessed by the stock market in the past few weeks, the benchmark KSE-100 index closed the ongoing week higher by 7.65pc or 2,537.19 points.
On the economic front, foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank declined by 8.9pc on a weekly basis and were recorded at $8.06 billion. A few weeks ago, the reserves had jumped on account of $2.5 billion in inflows from China.
Moreover, as per news reports, the federal and provincial governments have proposed Rs1.60 trillion for development spending, which is lower by 13pc. Furthermore, the government has set the economic growth target for its second year at 4pc and projected inflation rate at 8.50pc owing to the International Monetary Fund bailout programme.
Declining by 145.43 points, the KSE 100 index benchmark touched its intraday low of 35,435.91. It then managed to recover its losses and gained 185.36 points to reach its day’s high of 35,766.70. The index finally closed higher by 122.47 points at 35,703.81. The KMI 30 index declined by 116.06 points to settle at 57,440.24, while the KSE All Share index managed to gain 17.57 points, ending at 26,007.36.
The overall trading volumes declined from 227.50 million in the preceding session to 142.03 million. Unity Foods Limited (UNITY +0.00pc), Maple Leaf Cement Factory Limited (MLCF +4.90pc) and TRG Pakistan Limited (TRG +0.06pc) were the top picks of the day. The scripts had traded 12.26 million shares, 8.75 million shares and 5.77 million shares respectively.
The closed-end mutual fund sector (+6.10pc), cement sector (+3.11pc) and food and personal care products sector (+2.64pc) were the top gainers on Friday, while sugar and allied industries sector (-11.82pc), textile weaving sector (-2.42pc) and oil and gas exploration sector (-2.40pc) all ended the day as losers.
