KARACHI: The Pakis­tan stock market staged a robust rally on Thursday to snap the three-day losing spree with the KSE-100 index posting stellar gains of 608.73 points (1.42 per cent) and close at 43,528.51 points.

The market took investors on a roller-coaster ride as the index opened down, hitting the intraday low by 536 points on nervousness over the political development that threatened to throw into disarray the Senate elections scheduled for Mar 3.

“However, market sentiment improved drastically as clarity emerged during the course of the day amid reassurances from PM Abbasi over issuance of new tickets to PML-N candidates for Senate elections,” stated Intermarket Securities. This led market to stage a strong bounce back.

Bullish fire flared in the final trading hour when the index shot up 588.69 points as value buyers entered to pick stocks at bargain prices.

The investors took heart over the FATF decision as helping hand from its allies signalled a possible favourable decision. Investor sentiments also turned positive as Pakistan Oilfields hit the upper-price limit after Pakistan Petro­leum Information Service (PPIS) reported significant reserves of oil and gas in a new exploratory field (Jhandial), in which the company holds an 80pc stake.

The top five index point contributors were United Bank, down 4pc, Habib Bank 1.8pc, Engro Corp­oration 2.7pc, Oil and Gas Development Company 1.9pc and MCB Bank 1.8, adding 354 points to the index.

The foreign investors, who had off-loaded a big chunk of holdings a day earlier, stood on the sidelines with net purchases of only $0.10 million worth of stocks. Amongst the local participants, insurance companies were the lead buyers of shares valued at $5.51m.

Investor participation in trading increased as turnover rose 1pc to 190m shares while the traded value was up 7pc over the previous day to Rs9.1 billion.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2018