PSX gains 698 points ahead of the IMF board meeting

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) snapped a five-day losing streak on Thursday ahead of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) executive board meeting on the first review of the country’s $3 billion programme, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining 697.72 points (+1.09 percent) to close at 64,617.56 points.
The market opened on a positive note but remained lacklustre and took a dip to hit the day’s low within the first half an hour trading. Later, the bulls controlled the market for the next rest of the session. Excessive buying pressure was witnessed in the last half an hour trading. Investors remained interested in the energy sector, especially in oil marketing companies and oil exploration companies.
The turnaround comes after the KSE-100 had seen some profit-taking and consolidation around the 64,000-65,000 level in the previous sessions. Sentiments, however, got some boost after the federal government borrowed Rs283 billion in the market treasury bills auction held on Wednesday. Analysts said investors aggressively tried to lock in rates at higher yields amid expectation of rate fall.
According to experts, the market reacted positively to encouraging data of healthy remittances and lower T-bill auction yields. They noted that the meeting of the IMF’s executive board on the first review of the country’s $3 billion programme was also set and it is expected that the board will approve $700 million for the country.
The benchmark index traded in a range of 786.03 points, showing an intraday high of 64,700.97 points and an intraday low of 63,914.94 points. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index gained 518.31 points (+1.19 percent) to close at 43,710.67 points. Similarly, the KMI All Share Islamic Index gained 467.63 points (+1.46 percent) to close at 32,045.50 points.
Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index increased by 28.57 million shares to 365.09 million shares against 336.52 million traded in the previous session. However, the overall market volumes decreased by 49.62 million shares to 586.55 million shares against 636.17 million shares traded a session earlier.
Among scrips, KEL topped the volumes with 198.54 million shares (over 33 percent of total traded volumes), followed by PIIA (33.9 million) and PIBTL (27.39 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included KEL, PIAA, PIBTL, WTL, and HASCOL, which formed over 52 percent of total volumes.
A total of 358 companies traded shares in the stock exchange against 360 in the previous session, out of which shares of 203 closed up, shares of 130 companies closed down while shares of 25 companies remained unchanged. A total of 95 companies traded shares in the KSE-100 Index against the same number of companies in the previous session, out of which share prices of 71 companies closed up, 23 companies closed down and one remained unchanged.
The number of total trades decreased to 177,968 from 202,199 recorded in the previous session, while the value traded decreased by Rs0.96 billion to Rs17.02 against Rs17.98 billion in the previous session.
In terms of rupee, MARI remained the top gainer with an increase of Rs157.28 (+7.5 percent) per share, closing at Rs2,254.39. The runner-up remained PSMC, the share price of which climbed up by Rs62.69 (+7.5 percent) to Rs898.57. SFL remained the top loser with a decrease of Rs34.1 (-1.91 percent) per share, closing at Rs1,749.9, followed by PAKT, the share price of which fell by Rs23.6 (-2.07 percent) to close at Rs1,117.4 per share.
The major sectors taking the index towards north remained oil & gas exploration companies (357 points), commercial banks (109 points), cement (54 points), power generation and distribution (52 points), oil & gas marketing companies (40 points), miscellaneous (39 points), automobile assemblers (27 points), engineering (21 points), and textile composite (13 points).-TLTP