· Market traded narrow range today, oscillating between -56pts and +237pts, closing the session +35pts (unadjusted). Central bank is due to announce monetary policy in the evening today, where street consensus is of no change, however, investors do anticipate cautious wording that will highlight tilt towards tightening. Resultantly, Banking sector stocks moved up, particularly MCB, HBL and UBL. Technology sector on the other hand saw profit booking after making an uptick in the past couple of sessions. Similar activity was witnessed in Textile sector. Cement, O&GMCs and E&P sectors saw selling activity that brought the prices below LDCPs. Among scrips, WTL led the table with 36.6mn shares, followed by BYCO (34.2M) and KASBM (17.8M).
· The Index closed at 47,687pts as against 47,673pts showing an increase of 14pts. Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (+119pts), Textile (+40pts), Fertilizer (+29pts), O&GMCs (-43pts), Inv Banks (-35pts) and Cement (-32pts).
· Volumes declined from 450.2mn shares to 432.6mn shares (-4% DoD). Average traded value increased by 3% to reach US$ 86.3mn as against US$ 84.2mn.
· Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include WTL, BYCO, KASBM, TPL and ASC, which formed 28% of total volumes.
· Stocks that contributed positively to the index include HBL (+44pts), KTML (+30pts), SYS (+30pts), UBL (+27pts) and MCB (+25pts). Stocks that contributed negatively include DAWH (-37pts), PSO (-27pts), TRG (-22pts), NRL (-14pts) and COLG (-12pts).