Daily Times

The local bourse on Thursday concluded the second consecutive day on a highly positive note as the benchmark KSE 100 Index gained 944 points to close at the 35,581 level, increasing by 2.7 percent as compared to the previous trading session.

An equity analyst at Next Capital said stocks in Pakistan enjoyed a dramatic, V-shaped recovery after intense sell-offs in the past few weeks. The KSE 100 Index has staged an impressive 6.4 percent rally over the past 2 days. Cheaper valuations and the potential for continued profit gains helped support this rebound among equities.

Traded volumes increased to 228 million shares, while value traded moved up to US$47 million.

This was the second day after Fitch’s report that interest rates have peaked in 2019. Saudi Arabia will activate deferred oil payments facility from July 01, 2019 which will be positive for the foreign exchange reserves. This was fourth consecutive session this week where index closed in green, said an equity analyst at IIS Securities.

KSE 100 Index stages an impressive 6.4 percent rally over the past 2 days

Commercial banks contributed the most to the index gains today, followed by fertilizers and E&Ps.

Top volume stocks were BOP (+0.2%), KEL (-1.4%) and UNITY (+5.6%). Market rallied 6.4 percent since last two trading sessions as the quantum of flow spiked due to decent buy side interest by local institutions in the past 2 days.

Cement sector continued its upward trajectory with heavy volumes where DGKC (+5%), LUCK (+5%), MLCF (+5%), FCCL (+6%) and CHCC (+5%) all closed at their respective upper circuit. Investors’ interest was witnessed in the banking space on the back of interest rate increase. NBP (+5%), BAHL (+3.7%), BAFL (+3.3%), UBL (+2.7%) and HBL (+2.7%) were the major movers of the mentioned sector. Maaz Mulla, an equity analyst, expects the market to continue a similar trend and recommends investors to book profit on strength.