KARACHI: The stock market managed to close in the black for the sixth consecutive session on Tuesday, recovering from a steep intraday dip of nearly 200 points.

As confidence returned later in the day, the Pakistan Stock Exchange`s benchmark 100-share index bounced back to add 30 points (0.08pc) by the close. The small rally also helped the index to stay at an all-time high, at 36,265.

Volume improved to 281 million shares from 273m traded a day earlier. The trading value fell to Rs11.9 billion from Rs12.8bn as small-cap stocks led the trading volume.

Dewan Cement, Dewan Motors, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd and K-Electric contributed 126m shares in aggregate, or 45pc of the total volume. After a short spell ofbuying in the previous sessions, foreign investors sold stocks worth $5.94m net.As the noise over the MSCI reclassification of the KSE100 index to the emergingmarket slowed down a bit, the stocks which are candidates for the inclusion receded,including UBL (-1.6pc), OGDC (-0.6pc) and PSO (-0.4pc).

Ahmed Saeed Khan at JSGlobal said that mixed activity was observed at the bourse as investor interest was seen in the cement sector, with DCL rising by 5.7pc, CHCC 2.3pc and LUCK 1.5pc.

Moreover, gas utility companies SNGP (+1.1pc) and SSGC (+1pc) gained on the back of news that Pakistan and Italy may sign a government-togovernment deal for supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Pakistan.

Major support came from FML (+5pc), LUCK (+1.52pc), HUBC (+1.22pc) and DAWH (+1.46pc), with a cumulative contribution of 80 points. In contrast, UBL (-31 points), PPL (-14) and NESTLE (-12) dragged the index down.

Profit-taking was witnessed in select banking stocks as HBL, MCB Bank and UBL fell in the range of 0.2pctol.6pc.Pharmaceutical stocks also shed some of the heavy gains reaped in the previous few sessions.