Market watch: Riyadh support propels KSE-100 higher

Benchmark index rises 564.12 points to settle at 45,791.92

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Stock Exchange breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday as the announcement of assistance worth $3 billion by Saudi Arabia acted as the much-needed positive trigger. As a result, the benchmark KSE-100 index climbed 564 points.

In addition to the $3 billion support to prop up foreign exchange reserves, Riyadh also offered an oil facility amounting to $1.2 billion on deferred payment basis.

Buoyed by the upbeat development, market participants made fresh investment, which triggered a rally at the bourse. However, the suspension of trading for two and a half hours, due to technical issues in the trading terminal, halted the rising momentum.

A robust recovery of the rupee against the US dollar painted a positive picture of the economy and aided the stock buying activity.

Earlier, trading began on a positive note and the KSE-100 index surged past 45,500 points in early hours. The market accumulated nearly 700 points before trading was interrupted.

The bourse resumed activity with minor ups and downs and erased some of the gains by the end of trading.

At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 564.12 points, or 1.25%, to settle at 45,791.92.

Arif Habib Commodities Managing Director and CEO Ahsan Mehanti said that the stock market made a sharp recovery on reports of Saudi Arabian government’s approval of $3 billion financing and $1.2 billion deferred oil payment facility for budgetary support and Pakistan-IMF agreement on use of $2.78 billion of Covid support fund ahead of the resumption of the lender’s Extended Fund Facility.

“Strong financial results, a major recovery in rupee-dollar parity and higher global crude oil prices played the role of catalysts in the bullish close,” the analyst said.

Overall trading volumes increased to 180.4 million shares compared with Tuesday’s tally of 162.8 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs7.1 billion.

Shares of 333 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 245 stocks closed higher, 76 declined and 12 remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 11.8 million shares, gaining Rs0.09 to close at Rs2.38. It was followed by Unity Foods with 11 million shares, gaining Rs0.33 to close at Rs29.76 and Hum Network with 10.2 million shares, losing Rs0.01 to close at Rs6.76.