KARACHI: The stock market extended its overnight recovery drive on positive economic news, propelling the benchmark KSE 100 index above 79,000 on Wednesday.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said the market drew its strength from the prime minister’s resolve to boost exports to $60 billion in the next three years, hinting at low-cost power.

The finance minister also expected a rating upgrade from Moody’s on government initiatives to reform and improve economic indicators. An expected policy rate cut on July 29 fuelled optimism about the economic outlook, he added.

Topline Securities Ltd said the stock market exhibited positive momentum. Throughout the day, stocks such as Fauji Fertiliser, Meezan Bank, TRG Pakistan, Faysal Bank and Engro Fertiliser added 300 points to the index. Conversely, United Bank, Hub Power, and Dawood Hercules wiped out 110 points.

As a result, the benchmark index hit an intraday high of 79,704.37 points and a low of 79,071.48. However, the index settled at 79,397.01 after adding 409.92 points or 0.52 per cent on a day-on-day basis.

The overall trading volume rose 22.36pc to 386.98 million shares. The traded value, however, fell 12.73pc to Rs14.89bn on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Silk Bank (36.86m shares), Hascol Petroleum (25.77m shares), PIA Holding Company (17.16m shares), Al Shaheer Corp (14.69m shares) and Dewan Farooque (14.56m shares).

The shares registering the most significant incre­a­ses in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan (Rs70.00), Hoechst Pakistan (Rs48.65), Unilever Foods (Rs44.50), Ismail Indu­stries (Rs33.64) and Khyber Textile (Rs30.91).

The companies registering significant decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were Rafhan Maize (Rs95.87), Bata Pakistan (Rs50.28), PIA Holding Co (Rs41.99) Exide Pakistan (Rs41.18) and Shahmurad Sugar (Rs31.98).

Foreign investors tur­ned net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.18m.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2024