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KARACHI: Despite heightened political tensions amid persisting uncertainty over IMF loan approval, the robust remittances, falling global crude oil prices and a likely third straight cut in interest rate boosted market sentiments, tossing the KSE benchmark index above 79,000 barriers on aggressive mid-session value-hunting.
Topline Securities Ltd said institutional buying in blue-chip stocks drove the market’s upward momentum.
Key heavyweights, such as Engro Fertiliser, United Bank, Bank Alfalah, Lucky Cement, and Habib Bank saw significant gains in their share prices, contributing 367 points to the index’s rise.
Investor interest was notably strong in the cement sector, ahead of the upcoming monetary policy meeting on Sept 12, where a rate cut is widely anticipated.
Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation attributed the bullish close to a 40pc year-on-year surge in remittances to $2.9bn in August and the finance minister’s commitment to institutional reforms under the new IMF programme.
He added that speculations over the SBP key policy rate, surging exports, and expected resolution of the external financing gap contributed to a positive close.
As a result, the KSE index hit an intraday high of 79,335.59 and a low of 78,642.87. However, it settled at 79,286.74 after staging a rally of 671.73 points or 0.85pc day-on-day.
The trading volume rose 3.37pc to 509.49 million shares, and the traded value increased by 35.93pc to Rs13.76bn day-on-day.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included WorldCall Telecom (117.01m shares), Kohinoor Spinning Mills Ltd (57.11m shares), Agritech Ltd (18.16m shares), Pace Pakistan (17.72m shares) and Secure Logistics (14.85m shares).
The shares registering the most significant increases in their prices in absolute terms were Hoechst Pakistan (Rs137.38), Unilever Foods (Rs68.99), Service Industries(Rs41.19), Abbott Laboratories (Rs26.94) and Rafhan Maize (Rs23.61).
The companies that suffered major losses in their share prices in absolute terms were Hallmark Co (Rs104.68), Khyber Textile (Rs60.65), Leiner Pak Gelatine (Rs24.29), Nestle Pakistan (Rs19.99) and Colgate Pakistan (Rs10.80).
Foreign investors remained net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $1.75m.
Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2024
