On Thursday, the Pakistan stock market rebounded in intra-day trading after being hit hard early in the session and ending the day with a loss of 0.62 percent. As a result, the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (KSE) 100 index opened in negative territory and fell to an intra-day low of 44,657 – an 885-point decline – following the auction of 129 basis points higher cut-off rate on the government of Pakistan’s Market Treasury Bills (MTBs). On April 20, the margin on short-term government securities rose from 55 bps to 70 bps in the preceding auction.
Despite this, the KSE-100 finished the day down only 283.89 points, or 0.62 percent, to reach a final value of 45,249.41.
As a result of the projected interest rate increase in the approaching Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, participants began selling their assets early on.
According to analysts, higher than expected T-bill auction results were reported at the last one. The market believes that the SBP’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) would raise policy rates at its upcoming meeting. The policy rate would be determined by the government’s method of reducing subsidies as it strives to resuscitate the International Monetary Fund’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme. Imports would be discouraged, and demand would be moderated as a result of the expected hike and the current account imbalance would be reduced.
Short-term government paper auctions netted the federal government over Rs 672 billion.
Markets began to accept the higher yields as the day went on, and cherry-picking took over.
Technological and communication sectors (down 56.90 points), fertilizer (down 49.51 points), and power generation and distribution all contributed to the decline in the KSE-100 index as a whole (46.47 points).
The all-share index volume increased from 223.8 million on Wednesday to 325.47 million on Thursday. From Rs5.58 billion the previous session, the value of shares traded jumped to Rs9.29 billion today.
Following WorldCall Telecom with 37.5 million shares and Cnergyico PK with 34.66 million, and Hum Network XD with 27.43 million, were the three companies with the largest trading volumes.
On Thursday, 340 firms’ shares were traded, with 93 seeing their prices rise, 233 seeing their prices fall, and 14 seeing their prices stay the same.