PSX surges by 623 points over Saudi support package

KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Market (PSX) surged on Wednesday to briefly cross the 46,000 points level after reports that Pakistan has secured a $4.2 billion support package from Saudi Arabia.

Trading at the stock market was temporarily suspended for more than two hours due to a “technical issue” in the JADE Trading Terminal (JTT), the bourse said. The market remained suspended from noon till 2:30 PM. The market had gained 693.77 points when the trading was suspended before midday.

The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 623.23 points (1.95%) and closed at 45,851.04 points. The bourse increased in early trading to cross the 46,000 points levels and reached its highest level of 46,024.76 points. The total volume of shares at KSE-was 88.034 million valued at Rs5.399 bn.

The lower-bench KSE-30, KMI-30 index, and while All-Share Index remained unchanged due to the technical faults at the bourse. The stock market witnessed trading of 162.972 million shares in the trading session.

The most active stock was WorldCall Telecom Ltd (WTL 3.91%) which saw 11.835 million shares traded at the stock market. This was followed by Unity Foods Ltd (UNITY 1.12%), Hum News Ltd (HUMNL -0.15%), and Byco Petroleum (BYCO 1.13%) The total volume of scripts was 11.01 million, 10.13 million, and 8.94 million respectively.

The Saudi government announced a deposit of $3 billion with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) besides a $1.2 billion deferred oil facility to Pakistan to help its balance of payment issues.

The Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) announced the deposit to help the government support its foreign currency reserves. The news increased investor sentiment at the stock market.

The currency market also bounced back in the inter-bank market. The dollar was being traded at Rs173.00/173.11 around midday. On Tuesday, it was being traded at a record Rs175.27 in the inter-bank market.

The report said the deposit was in addition to an oil deferred payment facility of $1.2 billion for petroleum products during the year. The announcement would help ease pressure on Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves, due to the recent sharp hike in global commodity prices.