MM News

KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday witnessed a bullish trend as the benchmark KSE-100 Index closed well over the 44,000 level – rising over 600 points after two days of slump.

This is the first time the index has closed over the 44,000 level since May 2022.

At close, the KSE-100 index closed at 44,178.85 points, up 1.44 per cent or 626.02 points.

A standby agreement with the International Monetary Fund and payments given to independent power producers (IPP) that increased their shares were the main causes of today’s surge, according to analysts.

Index-heavy sectors including banking, cement, chemical, telecommunication, oil and gas exploration companies as well as OMCs settled in the green, while some automobile assemblers remained in the red.

Sectors driving the benchmark index upwards included, banking (160.19 points), oil and gas exploration (120.42 points) and cement (78.86 points).

Volume on the all-share index fell to 297.8 million from 351.2 million on Wednesday, however, the value of shares traded improved to Rs12.4 billion from Rs12 billion recorded in the previous session.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 28.8 million shares followed by Pak Elektron with 16.2 million shares and Pak Petroleum with 14.1 million shares.

Shares of 335 companies were traded on Thursday, of which 200 registered an increase, 112 recorded a fall and 23 remained unchanged.