KARACHI: Pakistan stocks gained 165 points on Wednesday owing to positive sentiments following unchanged monetary policy announced a day earlier.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 43,043 points as against previous day’s closing of 42,878 points, showing an increase of 165 points.
READ MORE: KSE-100 index sheds 389 points in volatile trading
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market stayed in the green zone today as the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) kept the policy rate unchanged at 9.75 per cent in March 2022 Monetary Policy meeting.
The central bank held its benchmark interest rate steady for the second meeting in a row as inflationary concerns cooled a bit, but it did hint at the possibility of an early huddle in case any economic fallout of Russia-Ukraine war spills over into the country. Cement sector stayed in the red zone due to mounting international coal prices. In the last trading hour, value buying was observed.
READ MORE: Pakistan stocks nosedive on world oil, political unrest
Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology (+74.6 points), Fertilizer (+63.0 points), E&P (18.1 points), Cement (+12.5 points) and Automobile & Parts (+5.8 points).
READ MORE: Weekly Review: market to remain jittery
Volumes decreased from 226.1 million shares to 183.7 million shares (-18.8 per cent DoD). Traded value also decreased by 14.8 per cent to reach US$ 34.0 million as against US$ 39.9 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include GGL, PIBTL, TPLP, TELE and TPL.
