Karachi – The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday witnessed a remarkable turnaround in both KSE-100 Index and KMI-30 Index which witnessed an improved investor confidence and a diversified buying interest by investors in different sectors of the market with one of the best performance it witnessed in a single day.
Close to an intraday high of 178,588.34, the benchmark KSE-100 Index opened at 175,600.30 points. The market, which had dipped to a session low of 175,153.17, picked up the pace and surged by 7,241.13 points, or 4.23 percent to end at 178,262.34.
Trading volume was also strong, with 385.16 million shares being traded among the index constituents, indicating strong participation by investors in trading throughout the day.
In the meantime, the KMI-30 index did better than the stock market. The Sharia-compliant benchmark opened at 247,629.78 points, climbed to an intraday high of 251,984.91, and touched a low of 246,794.53 before closing at 251,510.37. The index rose by an astounding 10,876.50 points, or 4.52%.
The volume traded on KMI-30 stocks amounted to 142.71 million, which corresponds reasonably to the activity of trading in Sharia-compliant stocks.
The main stocks that have been driving the rally are heavyweight stocks from the banking, fertiliser, energy and cement areas.
In the KSE-100 index, UBL contributed the largest with 961.45 points, followed by ENGRO (437.11 points), FFC (407.52 points), MEBL (374.80 points) and LUCK (364.40 points).
The largest contribution came from ENGRO with a 1,333.42 point increase on the KMI-30 index, followed by a 1,071.87 point increase for the MEBL and a 1,042.12 point increase for the HUBC, while PPL was able to contribute 1,531 points.
The performance for the year-to-date was mixed, although it was in a strong daily advance. The KSE-100 index closed with an up 2.42 percent change in the calendar year and 1.13 percent change in the fiscal year-to-date. Similarly, the KMI-30 index increased 1.20 percent over the calendar year but decreased 2.26 percent on a year-to-date basis.
The general recovery was driven by general demand for blue-chip stocks of good-quality companies, especially in the banking, energy, fertiliser and cement industries, said market participants. The trading volume also rose to a great extent, reflecting the investor confidence and investor sentiment in the equity market in Pakistan.
It has been highlighted that maintaining positivity would rely on the positive momentum that the market is expected to see in the next few days due to the upcoming corporate earnings, macroeconomic factors, policy decisions and overall investor confidence.
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