KARACHI: In a record-setting spree, bulls propelled shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) above the 98,000 mark today as share prices increased over 1,000 points in intraday trade.
The benchmark KSE-100 index climbed 2274.15 points to stand at 99,602.54 points from the last close of 97,328.39 points at 9:50am.
Earlier on Thursday PSX crossed the 97,000 benchmark for the first time in the history of the trading house, showing growing investor confidence.
The 100-Index surged by 1781.94 points, or 1.87%, to close at an all-time high of 97,328.40 after touching an intraday high of 97,437.15 points as compared to 95,546.46 points on the last trading day.
Meanwhile, a buying spree has pushed the PSX to a series of record highs in recent weeks.
On Thursday, the index saw brief selling in the early hours, touching an intra-day low of 95,300.21. However, a strong buying spree in the latter session of the trading day pushed it to settle at its highest-ever level.
Saad Hanif, analyst at Ismail Iqbal Securities, told Business Recorder that investor interest was particularly concentrated in the fertiliser sector, considered as defensive stocks i.e., not impacted much by market volatility, while also offering double-digit dividend yields.
It is pertinent to mention that Pakistan’s stock market has been on an upward trajectory in recent weeks.
On Thursday a total of 969,907,357 shares were traded during the day as compared to 1,138,411,946 shares the previous trading day, whereas the price of shares stood at Rs 35.167 billion against Rs. 37.481 billion on the last trading day.
As many as 457 companies traded their shares in the stock market, 249 of them registered gains and 167 met losses, whereas the share price of 41 companies remained unchanged.
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The three top trading companies were WorldCall Limited with 95,563,962 shares at Rs 1.38 per share, followed by Pace (Pak) Limited with 51,499,190 shares at Rs 5.81 per share whereas Kohinoor Spinning settled with 48,260,119 shares at Rs.8.40 per share.
Pakistan Services Limited registered a maximum increase of Rs.80.17 per share price, closing at Rs 882.84, whereas Haleon Pakistan Limited was the runner-up with Rs 80.13 rise in its per share price to Rs 882.45.
Rafhan Maize Products Company Limited witnessed a maximum decline of Rs 137.27 per share closing at Rs Nestle Pakistan followed by Services Industries Limited with a decrease of Rs 74.86 to close at Rs 6,616.31.
Investor sentiment improved in the market after Finance Minister Mohammad Aurangzeb assured that the recent visit of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to Pakistan posed no threat to Pakistan’s $7 billion loan programme.
