KARACHI: Shrugging off overnight gloomy sentiments, the stock market on Monday staged a strong rebound aided by aggressive foreign buying indicating improved investor confidence in the economic direction of the country.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks showed strong recovery as investors weighed World Bank approval of $149.7 million project financing and release of $1.1 billion early next month as an outcome of the Staff-Level Agree­ment reached last week under the current $3bn Stand-By Arrang­ement which would also pave the way for inflows from other lenders and friendly countries.

He said the $128m current account surplus in February, higher global crude oil prices and the steady rupee also fuelled aggressive buying.

Topline Securities Ltd said the oil and exploration sector spearheaded the market gains following reports of the government’s intention to solicit investments from friendly nations for the nation’s largest hydrocarbon explo­rer. Consequently, Oil and Gas Development Comp­any Ltd and Pakistan Pet­roleum Ltd attracted a buying interest pushing their scrips prices by 2.90pc and 1.66pc, respectively.

Banking, E&P, fertiliser and power sectors significantly contributed to the index’s rise.

As a result, the KSE-100 index closed at 65,525.65 points after adding 373.82 points or 0.57 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume rose by 25.32pc to 261.19 million shares. The traded value also jumped by 36.76pc to Rs7.14bn on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (27.17m shares), Hascol Petroleum Ltd (21.37m shares), K-Electric (20.91m shares), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (16.00m shares) and Pak Reinsu­rance Ltd (15.02m shares).

Shares registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs200.00), Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs24.39), Siemens Pak­istan Engin­eering Ltd (Rs14.00), Lucky Core Industries (Rs12.08) and Baluchistan Wheels Ltd (Rs9.98).

Companies registering the biggest decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were Rafhan Maize Products Company Ltd (Rs199.89), Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs45.17), Pakistan Engineering Com­pany Ltd (Rs30.64), Al-Ghazi Tractors Ltd (Rs27.60) and Service Indu­stries Textile Ltd (Rs18.55).

Foreign investors rem­ained net buyers as they purchased shares worth $3.09m.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2024