Stocks jump up 658 points on Supreme Court decision

KARACHI: Pakistan stocks gained 658 points on Friday following an order passed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan to declare the ruling of deputy speaker as illegal.

The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) ended 44,448 points as compared with previous day’s closing of 43,787 points, up by 658 points.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that PSX witnessed a bullish momentum today due to prolong awaited decision from the Supreme Court announced last night created clarity among investors.

Moreover, appreciation of Pak rupee against US Dollar was even a big relief to investors. In the first trading hour, rally was witnessed in the Banking, E&P and Refinery sectors.

Steel sector remained under pressure due to recent hike in interest rates. In the last trading hour, buying activity was observed across the board.

Analysts at Topline Securities said that bull session was observed at the exchange as the index gained 1.5 per cent to close at 44,445 level.

This positivity in market can be attributed to Supreme Court decision which put an end to political crisis to a large extend and rally in banking sector on account of 250 bps hike in policy rate by SBP to 12.25 per cent in an emergency Monetary Policy meeting yesterday.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (+328.1 points), E&P’s (+80.5 points), Cement (+52.1 points), Technology (+33.6 points) and Fertilizer (+30.5 points).

Volumes increased from 141.0 million shares to 227.9 million shares (+61.6 per cent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 36.2 per cent to reach US$ 36.7 million as against US$ 27.0 million.

Stock that contributed significantly to the volumes are TELE, GGL, TREET, CNERGY and TPLP.