March 19, 2024 (MLN): Bulls returned to the Pakistan stock market today despite the central bank’s decision to keep the policy rate unchanged.
The benchmark KSE-100 index closed Tuesday's trading session at 65,502.60 showing an increase of 612.09 points or 0.94%.
The index remained positive throughout the day, showing an intraday high of 65,624.73 (+734.22) and a low of 64,940.18 (+49.67) points.
The total volume of the KSE-100 index was 162.244 million shares.
Yesterday, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) kept interest rates at a record high of 22% for the sixth consecutive meeting.
In the post-MPC analyst briefing session, Governor SBP said that a $2 billion roll-over is in process and likely to be finalized in the coming week while another roll-over of $4bn is expected by June 2024.
The governor also seemed optimistic about the successive conclusion of second review of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), stating that the final assessment is anticipated to be shared by next week.
On the back of external buffers and the successful conclusion of the SBA program with the IMF, FX reserves are likely to reach the $9.1bn mark.
In today's trading session, of the 100 index companies 55 closed up, 38 closed down, 2 were unchanged, while 5 remained untraded.
KSE-100 index was supported by Commercial Banks with 267.72, Fertilizer with 98.34, Inv. Banks / Inv. Cos. / Securities Cos. with 90.62, Oil & Gas Exploration Companies with 62.37, and Automobile Assembler with 31.8 points.
On the contrary, the index was let down by Cement with 33.65, Synthetic & Rayon with 14.45, Power Generation & Distribution with 14.33, Refinery with 4.84, and Engineering with 3.44 points.
Companies adding points to the index were DAWH with 94.21, MCB with 74.32, MEBL with 68.81, MARI with 39.75, and BAHL with 38.88 points.
Meanwhile, companies that dragged the index lower were IBFL with 14.45, MLCF with 13.52, SYS with 11.91, DGKC with 10.56 and PKGP with 8.56 points.
In the broader market, the All-Share index closed at 43,528.88 with a net gain of 367.21 points.
Total market volume was 323.282 million shares compared to 211.758 from the previous session while traded value was recorded at Rs17.06 billion showing an increase of Rs9.27bn.
There were 141,924 trades reported in 340 companies with 183 closing up, 140 closing down and 17 remaining unchanged.
| Company | Volume |
|---|---|
| WTL | 27,822,745 |
| TELE | 20,828,617 |
| BOP | 17,912,724 |
| HASCOL | 16,621,000 |
| UNITY | 15,917,634 |
| AIRLINK | 15,531,083 |
| KEL | 14,806,637 |
| TOMCL | 14,646,500 |
| CNERGY | 10,474,992 |
| EFERT | 9,633,401 |
To note, the KSE-100 has gained 24,050 points or 58.02% during the fiscal year, whereas the ongoing calendar year has witnessed a cumulative increase of 3,052 points, equivalent to 4.89%.
Copyright Mettis Link News
Posted on: 2024-03-19T14:21:51+05:00
