ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Stock Exchange extended its record-breaking momentum on Friday, driven by robust institutional buying and growing investor confidence.
During the first half of the trading session, the benchmark KSE-100 Index surged past the 140,000 mark.
Positive momentum was observed during most of the trading session, pushing the KSE-100 to an intraday high of 140,585.38.
However, the benchmark index closed at 138,597.36, showing a decline of 68.13 points or 0.05 points due to the late profit-taking.
Buying was observed in key sectors including automobile assemblers, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies, and OMCs. Index-heavy stocks, including MARI, OGDC, PPL, POL, ARL, MCB, MEBL, and UBL, traded in the green.
On Friday, a total of 608,725,273 shares were traded during the day as compared to 780,007,655 shares the previous trading day, whereas the price of shares stood at PKR 31.588 billion against PKR 39.975 billion on the last trading day.
As many as 477 companies transacted their shares in the stock market, 119 of them recorded gains and 331 sustained losses, whereas the share price of 27 companies remained unchanged.
On Thursday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) maintained its bullish momentum, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index surging by 2,285 points, or 1.68%, to close at a new all-time high of 138,665.50.
Globally, Asian markets followed Wall Street’s lead on Friday, buoyed by strong US economic data and solid corporate earnings, which helped offset concerns over tariffs. Meanwhile, the Japanese yen continued its slide, heading for a second consecutive weekly loss ahead of Sunday’s upper house election in Japan.
Overnight, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq once again ended at record highs, as better-than-expected US retail sales and jobless claims pointed to modest economic improvement. The data gave the Federal Reserve some breathing room to assess the inflationary effects of elevated US tariffs.
Netflix surpassed Wall Street’s expectations for second-quarter earnings, aided in part by a weaker US dollar. However, its stock dipped 1.8% in after-hours trading, as analysts noted that much of the growth was already priced in.
On Friday, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 0.8%—its highest level since late 2021—capping a weekly gain of 1.7%.
In contrast, Japan’s Nikkei slipped 0.2%, while the yen weakened to 148.54 against the dollar, down around 0.7% for the week.
