KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) continued its positive momentum on Monday on the back of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) letter of intent and other expected inflows as KSE-100 gained 764 points in the day’s trading.
The market staged a rally, adding over 700 points to the benchmark KSE-100 index. It extended the bull run from the previous week and tossed the index above 43,000 points.
Earlier, trading kicked off with a rally as investors cherry-picked stocks at attractive valuations.
At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index closed at 43,621.82 points with an increase of 764.25 points or 1.78%.
Shares of 368 companies were traded during the session. At the close of trading, 272 scrips closed in the green, 72 in the red, and 21 remained unchanged.
Overall trading volumes rose to 541.54 million shares compared with Friday’s tally of 373.85 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs16.83 billion.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 58.62 million shares traded, gaining Rs0.20 to close at Rs3.35. It was followed by Pakistan Refinery with 38.74 million shares traded, gaining Rs0.26 to close at Rs19.72 and WorldCall Telecom with 37.75 million shares traded, gaining Rs0.01 to close at Rs1.35.
Earlier, finance minister Miftah Ismail said an LOI had been received early on Friday from the IMF for the revival of the program under the staff level agreement (SLA) and memorandum of economic and fiscal policies (MEFP) signed last month.
“We are going through the LOI, would sign and send [it] back to the IMF anytime soon and look forward to (executive) board meeting later this month for approval,” he said.
The IMF has convened a meeting of its executive board on August 29 to approve a bailout package for Pakistan, including disbursement of about $1.18bn, before the close of the current month.
The move follows the completion of the $4bn in bilateral financing from four friendly nations and would pave the way for immediate disbursement, expected to be in Pakistan’s account before the end of working hours on August 31.
