Despite disrupted session, KSE-100 settles at new record high

A fire incident halted trading for more than two hours, but the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) maintained its bullish run as the benchmark KSE-100 index settled at a new record high on Monday.

The index remained flattish during the first hour of trading, before the market saw suspension from 10:25am till 12:30pm, after fire broke out at the main building where several brokerage houses have their offices.

However, momentum returned to the bourse after trading resumed as the KSE-100 index hit an intra-day’s high of 80,737.71, with an addition of 524.92 points.

At close, the benchmark index settled at a new record high level of 80,566.21, an increase of 353.41 points or 0.44%.

Buying was witnessed in key sectors including automobile assembler, cement, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies and OMCs.

Index-heavy stocks including OGDC, PPL, PSO, SHEL, HBL and NBP settled in the green.

During the previous week, PSX witnessed a bullish trend and hit the then highest ever level on the back of aggressive buying by both local and foreign investors coupled with institutional support.

The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 1,767.83 points on week-on-week basis and crossed the 80,000 psychological level to close at 80,212.79 points.

Globally, Asian stocks inched higher on Monday as investors grew more confident about a September US rate cut, while the euro grappled with political uncertainty as French elections pointed to a hung parliament.

In France, a leftist alliance unexpectedly took top spot ahead of the far right, a major upset that was set to prevent Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) from running the government.

The loss of the far right was something of a relief for investors, though they also have concerns the left’s plans could unwind many of President Emmanuel Macron’s pro-market reforms.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan were up 0.1%, after reaching a two-year top last week.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee registered a marginal decline against the US dollar in the inter-bank market on Monday.

In a key development, it was learnt that Farrukh H Khan, who resigned from his positions of CEO and Managing Director of PSX, is set to join telecom operator Jazz as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Volume on the all-share index decreased to 261.6 million from 448.98 million in the previous session.

The value of shares declined to Rs13 billion from Rs18.9 billion in the last session.

Hum Network was the volume leader with 20.7 million shares, followed by National BankXD with 19.6 million shares, and B.O.Punjab with 17.6 million shares.

Shares of 427 companies were traded on Monday, of which 216 registered an increase, 158 recorded a fall, while 53 remained unchanged.