Stock market, on Thursday, appears to be in a standstill as the 100 index trades around the same level as yesterday, with minimal volume in the market as investors await ECC’s decision on the gas price hikes approved by the PM and come to terms with what that entails going forward.
During the initial hours of the trading session today, the 100 index is down merely 5.62 points, or 0.01%, with 30 million shares traded in the market so far.
Index remains range bound, having travelled within a range of 163 points with an intraday high of 41,715 points and an intraday low of 41,551 points so far.
Commercial banks are driving the gains on the index, having contributed 94.67 points to the index so far, but losses from Cement companies, followed by Oil and Gas Marketing companies have prevented the index from marching any higher.
Losses on Cement come about as domestic consumption plummets by 13.73 percent, according to data released by the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association, the first such decline in consumption in the last three years.
Cement heavy weights LUCK (-1.14%) and DGKC (-2.70%) are some of the largest drivers of the index on the sell side while gains on banking giants like UBL (+1.54%), HBL (+0.93%) and MCB (+0.87%) are serving as the set off on the index so far.
