The Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 Index closed higher on Wednesday, gaining nearly 150 points on the back of strong financial results.
The KSE-100 started the session positive, hitting an intra-day high of 51,483.85. However, some profit-taking in later part of the day curbed the gains.
At close, the benchmark index settled at 51,177.13, up by 149.19 points or 0.29%.
On Tuesday, the KSE-100 had closed slightly lower by 42.89 points on profit-taking.
“The equity market traded in green zone today [Wednesday] on the back of result-based rallies,” brokerage house Ismail Iqbal Securities said in its post-market report.
Commercial banks, technology and communication, and cement sectors were the major contributors during the session, it added.
Continuing the results season, UBL posted earnings of Rs15.04 billion for the third quarter of the ongoing calendar year, up over 128% from the profit-after-tax Rs6.59 billion in the same period of the preceding year.
HBL also declared another record quarterly profit for Q3CY23 with a profit before tax (PBT) of Rs32.0 billion, stated a press release issued on Wednesday. The bank’s consolidated PBT of Rs83.5 billion for the nine months of 2023 was 50% higher than the PBT for 9M’22.
Meanwhile, HUBCO saw its profit jump by over 93% to Rs18.32 billion in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023-24 that ended September 30.
On the economic front, the Pakistani rupee sustained a marginal loss against the US dollar as it depreciated 0.16% in the inter-bank market on Wednesday. As per the State Bank of Pakistan, the local currency settled at 279.88, a decrease of Re0.45.
Volume on the all-share index increased to 427.4 million from 321.4 million a day before.
The value of shares rose to Rs15.5 billion from Rs11.09 billion in the previous session.
WorldCall Telecom remained the volume leader with 80.7 million shares, followed by B.O.Punjab with 22.47 million shares and Fauji Cement with 21.26 million shares.
Shares of 351 companies were traded on Wednesday, of which 175 registered an increase, 160 recorded a fall, while 16 remained unchanged.
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