KARACHI: Despite a weaker rupee amid falling State Bank of Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves, the stock market snapped a three-session losing streak on Thursday as bulls drove bears out on aggressive value-hunting across the board, propelling the benchmark KSE 100 index above the 113,000 level.

Topline Securities Ltd said the market saw a positive turnaround, with the index dipping to an intraday low of 111,806 points and climbing to a high of 113,401 points before closing at 113,206 points, up by 1,719 points or 1.54 per cent day-on-day.

The rally was primarily fuelled by strong performances from Mari Energies, Bank Al-Habib AHL, Lucky Cement, PSO, and Hub Power, adding 923 points to the index.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks turned bullish amid speculations in the earning season ahead of major earnings announcements this week.

He added that IMF proposals to ease the gas circular debt issue and commitments from the US investor delegation supported the bullish activity at PSX.

Ali Najib, Head of Sales at Insight Securities, said after suffering a loss of 3,394 points or 2.96pc in the last three sessions, the index finally showed some sign of recovery. “Value-hunters rescued the market and did shopping across the board after considerable correction, especially in the energy sector’s stocks,” he added.

The trading volume rose 7.7pc to 483.93 million shares while the traded value dipped 7.3pc to Rs26.1bn day-on-day.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Sui Southern Gas (48.36m shares), Waves (33.22m shares), Bank Makramah (31.50m shares), Cnergyico PK (23.36m shares) and WorldCall Telecom (20.55m shares).

The shares registering the most significant increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Unilever Foods (Rs286.49), Rafhan Maize (Rs98.05), Atlas Honda (Rs79.39), Mari Energies (Rs54.73) and Pakistan Engineering Company (Rs49.98).The companies registering significant decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were Al-Abbas Sugar (Rs35.19), Exide Pakistan (Rs28.84), Nestle Pakistan (Rs28.55), Supernet Techno (Rs28.07) and Lucky Core Industries (Rs18.57).

Published in Dawn, January 31st, 2025