KSE-100 gains nearly 400 points on positive sentiment

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) was helped by positive sentiment, with the benchmark KSE-100 gaining nearly 400 points on Monday.

The KSE-100 started the day with gains, hitting an intra-day high of 45,788.74, followed by some profit-taking.

At close, the benchmark index settled at 45,707.43, up by 394.77 points or 0.87%.

During the previous week, the bourse remained under severe pressure and witnessed a drastic decline due to heavy selling on worries about rupee’s depreciation and fears of further increase in interest rate.

The benchmark KSE-100 index plunged by 2,358.56 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 45,312.66 points.

However, buying was witnessed in index-heavy sectors on Monday with automobile assemblers, cement, chemical, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies and OMCs trading in positive.

Experts attributed the return of positive sentiment to Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir’s meeting with prominent business figures at the Corps Commander headquarter in Lahore on Sunday.

The army chief and the business community discussed economic situation of the country.

During the meeting, General Asim Munir highlighted the pivotal role of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), emphasising its potential to attract substantial investments of up to 100 billion dollars from countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and others.

The development was seen as a positive signal by market players.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee recorded a marginal fall against the US dollar to settle at 305.64 on Monday. At close, the rupee was down Re0.17 or 0.06%, as per the State Bank of Pakistan.

Volume on the all-share index decreased to 139.25 million from 161.82 million on Friday.

The value of shares increased to Rs4.477 billion from Rs4.465 billion in the previous session.

Al-Shaheer Corp remained the volume leader with 11.27 million shares, followed by WorldCall Telecom with 11.21 million shares and Dewan Motors with 8.85 million shares.

Shares of 313 companies were traded on Monday, of which 187 registered an increase, 105 recorded a fall, and 21 remained unchanged.