KSE-100 boosted by upbeat economic data surpasses 42,000 mark

• KSE-100 index settles at 42,001.34 points with an increase of 0.33%.
• Remittance receipts motivate investors to assume fresh positions.
• Bullish investor spirits helped the index end the day on a positive note.

KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) resumed its upward march on Tuesday aided by strong economic cues and encouraging remittance data.

Resultantly, the KSE-100 index breached the psychological barrier of 42,000 points.

Investors weighed sentiments on encouraging remittances reading, which clocked-in at $2.7 billion in August 2022. The strong receipts motivated investors to assume fresh positions.

The KSE-100 index spiked as soon as trading began and gained nearly 200 points, however, the momentum was broken as investors resorted to profit-booking that erased a few of the gains by the end of the session. Bullish investor spirits helped the index end the day on a positive note.

At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index settled at 42,001.34 points with an increase of 139.05 points, or 0.33%.

Arif Habib Limited in its post-market commentary noted that another range-bound session was witnessed at the PSX today.

“The market opened in a positive zone and continued to trade in a consolidated range as investor’s participation remained dull throughout the day due to weakening Pakistani rupee against the US dollar,” it said.

However, in the last trading hour value buying was noticed.

Sectors contributing to the performance included banks (+75 points), automobile assemblers (+35.7 points), cement (+33.5 points), power (+22 points), and textile (+8.5 points).

Shares of 324 companies were traded during the session. At the close of trading, 145 scrips closed in the green, 151 in the red, and 28 remained unchanged.

Overall trading volumes soared to 118.51 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 161.42 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs3.87 billion.

Hascol Petroleum was the volume leader with 10.21 million shares traded, gaining Rs0.21 to close at Rs6.81. It was followed by K-Electric with 6.92 million shares traded, losing Rs0.01 to close at Rs3.21 and Quice Food Industries with 5.41 million shares traded, gaining Rs0.66 to close at Rs4.53.