Stocks drift higher in mixed trade

After oscillating within a short range, the prices of representative stocks inched up on Monday despite profit-taking by investors. Topline Securities said negative sentiments can be attributed to market reports that hinted at a further delay in the staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In addition, the market anticipated that the central bank’s monetary policy committee would meet sooner than scheduled and increase the key interest rate — something that kept investors from taking fresh positions. According to Arif Habib Ltd, the benchmark index traded in both directions as investors chose to remain passive owing to political uncertainty and the delayed IMF programme. As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 40,784.13 points, up 76.37 points or 0.19 per cent from the preceding session. The overall trading volume increased 3pc to 158.1 million shares. The traded value went up 15.4pc to $22m on a day-on-day basis.