KARACHI: The buying spree extended to the fourth day with the KSE-100 index clocking in gains of 593.25 points, or 1.3 per cent, to close at 45,450.31 on Wednesday.

Intraday the KSE-100 index climbed to 684 points.

The four-day recovery mounted to 2,662 points, reclaiming over 83pc of the massive losses of 3,058 suffered last week due to political mayhem leading to the election of chairman and deputy chairman of the Senate.

Investors headed back to the equity market as they perceived political risk to have declined with the Pakistan Democratic Move­ment deciding to call off the planned long march. There was a general relief among investors that the government could now focus its attention on other pressing problems on the economic front.

Most stock strategists who were expecting a moderate hike of 50 to 100bps in the Monetary Policy State­ment to be unveiled on Friday changed their outlook to the status quo. Persistent appreciation of the rupee and jump in remittances also contributed to the positivity, along with news that the government was engaging banks to launch international bonds for external financing.

Sectors contributing to the bullish performance included cement which rose in the lead of Kohat, Pioneer, D.G. Khan and Power Cement. Technology sector scrips were seen to gain as fast as they had lost last week with TRG, Netsol and AVN posting gains.

Banking share prices also moved higher including those of three big: UBL, HBL and MCB Bank. Stocks that contributed positively to the index included TRG (100 points), UBL (59 points), HBL (45 points), PPL (24 points) and MCB Bank (23 points).

Foreigners, companies, banks and individuals indulged in profit-taking while mutual funds continued to buy and so did insurance companies and broker proprietary trading.

The trading volume increased 25pc to 510m shares. The traded value also rose by 25pc to $160m.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2021