KARACHI: A bullish trend prevailed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Tuesday as investors welcomed the decision of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to maintain the status quo in the benchmark interest rate a day ago.

Investors’ sentiments also improved on the expectations for $2 billion bilateral support from Qatar and $1bn oil financing from Saudi Arabia along with $1bn investment from the United Arab Emirates to help Pakistan resolve the financial crisis, said Arif Habib Corporation analyst Ahsan Mehanti.

However, there was some pressure on share prices mid-session on weak global crude oil prices, political noise and a falling rupee against the dollar.

The rupee depreciated 0.46 per cent against the greenback in the interbank market to close at 217.66.

However, strong financial results in the energy sector and SBP’s hint about the disbursement of a $1.2bn loan tranche from the Internat­ional Monetary Fund next month helped stocks close on a bullish note, he said.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 43,366.77 points, up 540.11 points or 1.26pc from a day ago.

The trading volume incre­ased 66.7pc to 324.4 million shares while the traded value went up 81.1pc to $44.4m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Hascol Petroleum Ltd (64.11m shares), K-Electric Ltd (25.23m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (16.97m shares), Pakistan Refinery Ltd (15.82m shares) and Cnergyico PK Ltd (12.03m shares).

Sectors contributing to the index performance included fertiliser (124.8 points), cement (121.7 points), exploration and production (72.2 points), technology (62.2 points) and banking (43.9 points).

Companies registering the biggest increase in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs242), Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs64.99), Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs38.83), Lucky Cement Ltd (Rs27.51) and Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (Rs23.31).

Shares that declined the most in rupee terms were Pakistan Services Ltd (Rs85), Sanofi-Aventis Paki­s­tan Ltd (Rs70), Gatron Industries Ltd (Rs28.99), Thal Industries Corporation Ltd (Rs9.87) and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Ltd (Rs8.65).

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2022