The Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 Index lost steam during trading on Thursday as investors decided to cash in some profit around the 66,000-point level.
The KSE-100 started the session positive, hitting an intra-day high of 66,196.24, continuing the Wednesday’s positive trend over announcement of the staff level agreement between Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the second and final review of the $3 billion Stand-By Arrangement (SBA).
However, profit-taking kicked in the second half and pushed the index into the negative territory. The 66,000-point level has remained a major resistance point over the past several weeks.
At close, the benchmark index settled at 65,417.40, down by 314.39 points or 0.48%.
On Wednesday, the KSE-100 had closed higher by 229 points.
In a key development, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Thursday the government was going to take tough economic decisions to steer the country out of crisis assuring the protection of downtrodden segments of the society.
He said that the burden of these measures would primarily fall on the wealthy and elite, with safeguards in place to protect the interests of the poor and vulnerable.
Pakistan authorities also directed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to initiate a crackdown against electricity and gas theft across the country.
“Starting today, the FIA launches a massive crackdown against electricity and gas theft across the nation,” said Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi in a post on social media platform X.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee remained largely stable against the US dollar in the inter-bank market on Thursday. At close, the local unit settled at 278.40, up by Re0.01 against the greenback, as per the State Bank of Pakistan.
Volume on the all-share index increased to 389.65 million from 341.84 million a session ago.
However, the value of shares decreased to Rs11.30 billion from Rs11.84 billion in the previous session.
P.T.C.L. was the volume leader with 52.9 million shares, followed by Pak Int.Bulk with 42 million shares, and B.O.PunjabXD with 29.10 million shares.
Shares of 357 companies were traded on Thursday, of which 115 registered an increase, 221 recorded a fall, while 21 remained unchanged.
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