KSE-100 extends gains, up another 488 points

After seeing its best day of the year on Thursday, the KSE-100 extended its rally to close the week on a positive note, registering a gain of 1.1% or 488 points.

The index opened positive and then briefly swung to the red before recovering to hit an intra-day high of 44,834.83.

At close on Friday, the KSE-100 Index finished with a gain of 487.85 points or 1.10% to settle at 44,821.53. The benchmark index finished with a 0.77% increase on a weekly basis.

KSE-100 sees its best day of the year, gains 1,112 points

The gain comes a day after the benchmark index increased 2.57%, its highest this year, to power past the 44,000 level with a gain of 1,111.9 points.

Expectations of successful negotiations with the International Monetary Funds (IMF) have boosted market confidence.

On the economic front, total liquid foreign exchange reserves declined by a marginal $31 million on a weekly basis, showed data released by the central bank.

On the corporate front, Interloop Ltd (ILP) announced earnings for 1QFY22 at Rs2,690 million alongside an EPS of Rs3.08, up by 95% YoY and 59% QoQ, compared to Rs1,382 million and an EPS of Rs1.58 in the same period last year.

On Friday, sectors driving the benchmark KSE-100 index upwards included oil and gas exploration (137.99 points), fertiliser (78.66 points), and cement (58.42 points).

Volume on the all-share index decreased from 388.6 million on Thursday to 334.3 million on Friday. The value of the shares trade also declined, amounting to Rs11.79 billion from Rs13.09 billion on Thursday.

Service Fabrics was the volume leader with 34.26 million shares, followed by Unity Foods Limited with 26.47 million shares, and WorldCall Telecom with 25.49 million shares.

Shares of 356 companies were traded on Thursday, of which 226 registered an increase, 116 recorded a fall, while 14 remained unchanged.