Stocks close in green on value-hunting

Share prices moved within a short range on Thursday owing to the ongoing political instability. Arif Habib Ltd said the stock market opened in the negative zone but stocks later fluctuated both ways. The benchmark of representative shares reached an intraday high of 206.72 points and finished in the green territory as investors showed optimism about the disbursement of the ninth tranche of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan. According to Topline Securities, investors resorted to value-hunting across the board, a move that helped the index close at a higher level. The finance minister also gave a go-ahead to philanthropists to raise dollars from overseas Pakistanis for overcoming the liquidity shortage. As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 40,733.51points, up 113.56 points or 0.28 per cent from the preceding session. The overall trading volume decreased 5.3pc to 124.1 million shares. The traded value went up 3.2pc to $22.69m on a day-on-day basis.