Stocks witness 1,372-point bull-run with IMF hopes

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed a massive bull run on Monday after Saturday’s revised budget rekindled hopes for revival of the stalled International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan programme, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining 1,371.78 points (+3.42 percent) to close at 41,437.10 points.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday announced the withdrawal of all restrictions on imports to facilitate the industrial sector and meet one of the IMF’s conditions. All these steps ignited hopes of resumption of the IMF programme and resulted in across-the-board buying. The stocks witnessed the highest day-on-day points increase since April 2022.
The market opened on a bullish note and remained positive throughout the session. The benchmark index saw an intraday high of 41,491.87 points and an intraday low of 40,334.05 points. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index gained 763.67 points (+2.73 percent) to close at 27,965.97 points, while KMI All Share Islamic Index gained 497.17 points (+2.43 percent) to close at 20,421.28 points.
Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index more than doubled to 122.32 million against 59.55 million a session earlier, showing an increase of 62.77 million shares. The overall market volumes increased by 84.49 million to 221.39 million shares against 136.9 million shares a session earlier.
Among scrips, WTL topped the volumes with 26.226 million shares, followed by FFBL (13.15 million) and SNGP (12.50 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included WTL, FFBL, SNGP, OGDC, and TPLP, which formed around 31 percent of total volumes.
A total of 324 companies traded shares in the stock exchange as compared to 311 a session earlier. Out of traded companies, shares of 267 closed up, shares of 42 closed down while shares of 15 companies remained unchanged. A total of 94 companies traded shares in the KSE-100 Index against 90 companies a session earlier, out of which shares of 86 companies closed up, four closed down and four remained unchanged.
The number of total trades increased by 45,711 to 108,039 against 62,328 a session earlier, while the value traded increased by Rs3.66 billion to Rs7.04 billion.
In terms of rupee, PAKT remained the top gainer and witnessed an increase of Rs43.66 (+6.73 percent) per share, closing at Rs692.51. The runner-up remained COLG, the share price of which climbed up by Rs40.39 (+3.68 percent) to Rs1,138.06. PSEL remained the top loser in terms of rupee and witnessed a decrease of Rs63 (-7.48 percent) per share, closing at Rs779, followed by FASM, the share price of which fell by Rs26.25 (-7.5 percent) to close at Rs323.75 per share.
The sectors taking the index towards north were commercial banks (333 points), fertilizer (193 points), power generation & distribution (145 points), cement (139 points), and technology & communication (121 points). The major companies adding points to the index remained HUBC (132 points), UBL (101 points), ENGRO (69 points), EFERT (66 points), and SYS (55 points).
The sectors taking the index towards south were miscellaneous (29 points) and sugar & allied industries (3 points). The major companies depriving the index of points remained PSEL (34 points), SNGP (17 points) and JDWS (3 points). – TLTP