Daily Times

Investors’ faith in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) was shaken on Thursday as the benchmark KSE-100 Index fell by 0.74 percent, although volumes and value of shares traded were up from the previous session.

Because of the Supreme Court’s impending verdict on the National Assembly Speaker’s ‘Vote of No Confidence,’ investors chose to stay away from the market during trading hours, according to Topline Securities.

The session began on a good note, with the benchmark index hitting an intra-day high of 44,349.86 points, an increase of 238.49 points. Gains were quickly reversed, however, when political and economic unrest swept the nation.

As of closing, KSE-100 has lost 324.27 points, or 0.74 percent of its value.

It was noted that “investor confidence was affected as a result of currency devaluation and political upheaval in India,” according to Capital Stake’s post-market commentary.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) resolved in an emergency meeting to raise the policy rate by 250 basis points to 12.25 percent, which was announced after the market closed.

The PSX is expected to reflect the development on Friday.

Announcing the completion of its Home Care Production Facility, Nimir Industrial Chemicals Limited notified the stock market. “The company has launched commercial manufacturing of the home care goods for its global customers, with whom the company has already been working,” said the statement from the notification.

General secretary of Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan, Zafar Paracha said while stock market share prices are influenced by overall economic conditions in every country of the world, while Pakistan is the only country where speculators’ activity in stock market causes the share price to swing numerous times throughout a single day.

KSE 100 was dragged down by the banking (114.70 points), cement (47.59 points), and power generation and distribution (48.99 points) industries, among others (34.37 points).

As compared to the 108.41 million shares traded on Wednesday, there were 141.01 million shares traded on the all-share index. Another positive development was the increase in the value of the shares traded to Rs4.98 billion from Rs4.27 billion in the preceding session.

Pak Elektron came in second with 9.24 million shares, followed by K-Electric Limited with 7.7 million shares in volume. On Thursday, shares of 308 firms were traded, with 93 seeing gains, 193 seeing declines, and 22 seeing no change.