Pakistan equity market remains bullish

KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) showed positive momentum across-the-board with the volumes picking up pace and the market closing in the green zone fuelled by an optimistic outlook that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme will resume in the coming days, analysts said on Tuesday.

An analyst at Pearl Securities said the PSX witnessed a rally in the energy sector in the light of the recent news developments about the settlement of the circular debt of the state-owned energy enterprises.

“The market maintained the upward march, primarily driven by the Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) and the Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL), which cumulatively added 136 points in the index.”
The KSE-100 Index closed at 41,522.76 points, up 332 points, or 0.81 per cent.

The All-share volume increased 68 per cent to 297 million shares against 176 million shares traded on Monday.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that the stocks closed higher on the rupee recovery and speculations over completion of the ninth review to end up with reduction in the fiscal deficit and the circular debt.

“The government’s approval over power tariff hike, further taxes for the IMF deal and likely strong corporate payouts in the oil sector to settle the circular debt crises played a catalytic role in the bullish activity.”

Going forward, analysts expect the market to remain volatile until the IMF’s ninth review is successfully concluded.