KARACHI: A range-bound trading session took place on the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday owing to further devaluation of the rupee against the dollar along with rising investors’ concerns about new taxes in the upcoming budget, said Arif Habib Ltd.
The government is likely to set a tax collection target of Rs7.25 trillion for 2022-23, up 19 per cent from the revised target of Rs6.1tr for the ongoing fiscal year. The budget is likely to have new tax measures worth between Rs400 billion and Rs450bn, according to Topline Securities.
“Going forward, we expect the range-bound activity to continue and recommend that investors should adopt a buy-on-dip strategy focusing on dividend-yielding stocks,” said JS Global in a note to investors.
The KSE-100 index settled at 41,568.41 points, down 8.8 points or 0.02pc from a day ago.
The trading volume decreased 16.8pc to 157.4 million shares while the traded value went down 13.8pc to $20.8m on a day-on-day basis.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included TPL Properties Ltd (17.45m shares), Unity Foods Ltd (15.52m shares), Pakistan Refinery Ltd (13.41m shares), Oilboy Energy Ltd (12.94m shares) and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (6.57m shares).
Sectors that took away the highest number of points from the benchmark index included commercial banking (21.03 points), technology and communication (20.52 points), food and personal care (15 points), power generation and distribution (13.07 points) and investment banking (8.7 points).
Shares contributing most negatively to the index included Habib Bank Ltd (20.47 points), TRG Pakistan Ltd (13.4 points), Unity Foods Ltd (12.01 points), the Hub Power Company Ltd (11.25 points) and MCB Bank Ltd (10.95 points).
Stocks that contributed most positively to the index included Nishat Mills Ltd (17.26 points), Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (15.64 points), Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (11.21 points), Engro Poymer and Chemicals Ltd (11.04 points) and Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (10.4 points).
Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.47m.
Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2022