KARACHI: Pakistani stocks extended their overnight rally, hitting an all-time high closing above the 74,000 barrier as investors weighed Citibank’s expectations that Pakistan would reach a $8 billion new IMF loan deal by July and an easing of interest rates from June.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said the government plans to privatise all state-owned enterprises except strategic ones and SBP’s revised forecast of 3.5pc growth in FY25 supported bullish sentiments.

Topline Securities Ltd said the market momentum remained buoyant as investors welcomed the beginning of talks with the IMF for a longer and larger Extended Fund Facility.

Encouraging April automobile sales numbers, sho­w­ing early signs of the industry’s turnaround due to rupee stability and anticipation of monetary easing, kept the automobile sector on investors’ radars thro­ughout the trading hours.

In addition, prospects of a reduction in domestic petroleum product prices in the next review kept the bears at bay, as this decline would further cool down the inflationary environment in the months to come.

The top contributors were the fertiliser, E&P, and banking sectors, and companies like Engro Ferti­l­i­sers, Oil and Gas Develo­pment Company Ltd, Meezan Bank Ltd, MCB Bank, and Mari Petroleum contributed 428 points to the index. Conversely, TRG Pakistan, Dawood Herc­ules, and Interloop Ltd cumulatively shed 33 points due to some selling sentiments in them.

As a result, the benchmark index hit an intraday record high of 74,575.31 and a low of 73,977.01. How­e­ver, the KSE 100 index closed at a new peak of 74,531.19 points after rallying by 732.08 points or 0.99pc on a day-on-day basis.

However, the overall tra­d­ing volume tumbled 20.42pc to 574.18 million sha­res. The traded value also dipped by 8.67pc to Rs23.42bn on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Cnergyico PK (35.48m shares), Worl­dcall Telecom Ltd (29.89m shares), K-Electric (28.16m shares), Pak Elektron (19.88m shares) and Fauji Foods (19.54m shares).

The shares registering the most significant incre­ases in their share prices in absolute terms were Ismail Industries Ltd (Rs96.28), Mari Petroleum (Rs73.68), Exide Pakistan (Rs31.26), Hoechst Pakistan (Rs30.00) and Thal Ltd (Rs27.56).

The companies registering the major decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan (Rs94.42), Rafhan Maize (Rs59.43), Hallmark Company (Rs49.78), Khy­ber Textile (Rs42.02) and Sapphire Fibres (Rs15.14).

Foreign investors remai­ned net buyers as they pic­k­ed shares worth $2.80m.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2024