PSX Closing Bell: Bracing for the hike

September 08, 2023 (MLN): The Pakistan stock market concluded the week on a positive note, with the KSE-100 index closing just above the 46,000 mark on Friday. It recorded a gain of 256.25 points or 0.56% when compared to the previous day, closing at 46,013.49.

For the week, the index marked a gain of 700.83 points or 1.55%, this comes after four consecutive red weeks.

The Pakistani Rupee (PKR) continued to maintain its strong performance in both the interbank and the open market, gaining a remarkable 2.5 rupees in the interbank market and 23 rupees in the open market against the USD over the week.

Despite these favorable currency movements, the stock market did not witness a significant boost and remained relatively unaffected.

This lack of momentum can be attributed to the largely anticipated interest rate hike of up to 200-300bps in the upcoming Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting scheduled for September 14.

This expectation was reinforced by the latest T-bills auction held on September 07, which witnessed a sharp increase in the cut-off yields, reaching 24.5%, 24.787%, and 25.0687% for 3, 6, and 12 months respectively.

This means that the cut-off yields showed a rise of 162bps for 3 months and 213bps for 12 months as compared to the last auction held on August 23.

This indicates that the market is pricing in a higher interest rate scenario in the near future.

The index traded in a range of 348.49 points showing an intraday high of 46,077.38 (+320.14) and a low of 45,728.89 (-28.35) points.

Total Volume of the KSE100 Index was 67.98 million shares.

Of the 100 index companies 48 closed up, 35 closed down, 6 were unchanged while 11 remained untraded.

KSE100 index was supported by Commercial Banks with 101.87, Technology & Communication with 39.82, Oil & Gas Exploration Companies with 30.92, Power Generation & Distribution with 29.57 and Inv. Banks / Inv. Cos. / Securities Cos. with 24.88 points.

Companies adding points to the index were PPL with 38.97, BAFL with 37.9, MEBL with 36.91, HUBC with 33.0 and SYS with 29.23 points.

KSE100 Index was let down by Fertilizer with 13.01, Food & Personal Care Products with 6.28, Miscellaneous with 2.73, Automobile Assembler with 2.55 and Modarabas with 0.8 points.

Companies dragging the index lower were POL with 20.6, ENGRO with 14.42, NATF with 11.94, UBL with 4.93 and MARI with 4.88 points.

In the broader market, the All-Share index closed at 30,697.96 with a net gain of 188.71 points.

Total market volume was 149.572 million shares compared to 177.063 from the previous session while traded value being recorded at 5.55 billion showing a decrease of Rs.2.03 billion.

There was 86,803 trades reported in 311 companies with 166 closing up, 114 closing down and 31 remaining unchanged.

KSE-100 Historical Performance

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