KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed yet another day of lackluster activity on Thursday, with the 100-index crawling up by 150 points and closing at 40,813 points.

Most of the dull activity can be attributed to political uncertainty and lack of positive triggers, brokers said.

Equities exhibited positive behavior from start and remained in green throughout the day. Some profit-taking was witnessed which pulled the market lower. Investors turned their attention to penny stocks. Resultantly, d/d traded volumes were up 7% while value was down 26%, observed a dealer at Topline brokerage.

According to the news, government is contemplating closing the furnace oil power plants which could potentially dent profitability of the power and OMCs sector going forward, stated dealer at JS Global.

E&P sector gained to close higher than its previous day close as crude oil prices recouped over growing expectations that OPEC will extend an ongoing production cut agreement. PPL (up 1.03%), POL (1.55%) and OGDC (0.50%) were the major gainers of the mentioned sector. ENGRO (up 1.28%) also recovered after witnessing heavy battering post exclusion from the main MSCI EM index as value buyers jumped in to take advantage of weak price levels, marker participant said.

Top index point performers were HBL (up 1.3%), POL (1.4%), ENGRO (1.4%), PPL (1.1%) & PAKT (5%), contributing 111 points to the index, while IGIIL (down 4.8%), KAPCO (1.2%), SNGP (0.7%), FCCL (1.5%) & MARI (0.6%) withheld 31 points from the index.

On the sector front; commercial banks contributed 69 points, E&P staged recovery on back of slight uptick in WTI prices to add 46 points, while on the flip side power, insurance, and OMCs cumulatively eroded 25points.
Volumes remained subdued, reflecting little change from the previous day as 97m shares changed hands during the day.