KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) continued to achieve new highs on Friday as yet another 1,100 points took shares across the 109,000 mark in intraday trade, with experts noting investors’ interest and confidence.
According to local media reports, the benchmark KSE-100 index rose 1,110.66 points to stand at 109,349.62 points from the last close of 108,238.96 at 10:20am.
The increase comes just a day following the PSX saw the third-largest single-day rally of 3,134.63 points. It also follows sustained optimism after Pakistan’s annual inflation rate declined to 4.9pc in November, its lowest level since 2017.
Dawn news reported that Awais Ashraf, director of research at AKD Securities said that expectations of an interest rate cut in the next Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Dec 16 are contributing to the upward movement of the index.
Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation was of the view that rupee stability, decreasing lending rates, government debt stock and bond yields drove the market to new highs.
Mehanti said that the PSX obtained another milestone as market activity increased to an almost 19-year high, with a traded value of Rs63.0bn ($227m).
On Thursday a total of 1,647,134,799 shares were entertained during the day as compared to 1,749,316,877 shares the previous trading day, whereas the price of shares stood at Rs63.229 billion against Rs50.416 billion on the last working day.
As many as 473 companies transacted their shares in the stock market, 307 of them registered gains and 129 met losses, whereas the share price of 37 companies remained constant.
The three top trading companies at the PSX were Bank of Punjab with 163,462,276 shares at Rs10.09 per share followed by WorldCall Telecom with 150,476,152 shares at Rs1.59 per share and Cnergyico PK settled with 86,659,730 shares at Rs.6.87 per share.
Unilever Pakistan Foods Limited experienced a maximum increase of Rs481.08 per share price, closing at Rs20,681.08, whereas Sapphire Fibres Limited was the runner-up with Rs101.64 rise in its per share price to Rs1,214.02.
Hafiz Limited witnessed a maximum decline of Rs24.27 per share closing at Rs 238.23 followed by Fateh Sports Wear Limited with a fall of Rs11.20 to close at Rs100.77.
According to experts exchange rate stability, a transition from one $3-billion arrangement to another longer facility with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), improvement in index-heavy sector’s earnings, and a general mood for stocks have been just a few factors behind the PSX phenomenal rise.
It is pertinent to mention that the core inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) decelerated further to 4.9 percent during November 2024 as compared to 7.2 percent in October 2024 said Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
