Pakistan stocks rally on Chinese loan facility

Pakistan stocks rally on Chinese loan facility

KARACHI: Pakistan stocks rallied on Thursday after the country signed a loan agreement of about $2.3 billion with a consortium of Chinese banks.

The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) ended 42,717 points as compared with previous day’s closing of 42,458 points, showing a gain of 259 points.

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Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the KSE-100 index dominated by the bulls during the day.

Across the board rally was witnessed as Chinese consortium of banks signed an RMB 15 billion ($2.3 billion) loan facility agreement which resulted in recovery of Pak Rupee against USD. Volumes remained healthy across the board.

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The IPP sector remained in limelight as Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet approved Rs149 billion for the power sector to be paid to the IPPs and K-Electric in the current fiscal year.

Moreover, profit taking was observed in the last trading hour.

The Index closed at 42,716.97 points, up by 258.83 points (+0.61 per cent DoD). Sectors contributing to the performance include Power (+74.8 points), Banks (+52.2 points), Technology (+26.4 points), OMC’s (+25.9 points) and Cement (+15.0 points).

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Volumes increased from 266.1 million shares to 349.5 million shares (+31.3 per cent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 19.7 per cent to reach US$ 48.9 million as against US$ 40.9 million.

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes are CNERGY, PRL, KEL, UNITY and TPLP.

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