The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) maintained an upward trajectory with the benchmark KSE-100 Index crossing the 93,000 level for the first time in history during intra-day trading on Friday.
At 2:30pm, the benchmark index was at 93,494.07, an increase of 973.59 points or 1.05%.
Buying was observed in key sectors including automobile assemblers, cement, commercial banks, fertilizer, oil and gas exploration companies and power generation.
Index-heavy stocks including HUBCO, SSGC, OGDC, PPL and NBP traded in the green.
The stock market has been on a buying spree in recent weeks led by strong corporate results and improved economic indicators.
On Thursday, PSX witnessed a bullish trend and hit record levels on the back of fresh buying, mainly by local investors coupled with institutional support.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index surged by 499.05 points or 0.54% and closed at a fresh high of 92,520.49 points.
In a key development, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Thursday as policymakers took note of a job market that has “generally eased” while inflation continues to move towards the U.S. central bank’s 2% target.
“Economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace,” the central bank’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee said at the end of a two-day policy meeting in which officials lowered the benchmark overnight interest rate to the 4.50%-4.75% range, as widely expected. The decision was unanimous.
On the local front, the inflow of overseas workers’ remittances into Pakistan stood at $3.052 billion in October 2024, a substantial 24% increase on a year-on-year (YoY) basis when compared with $2.463 billion in the same month of the previous year, showed data released on Friday by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
Globally, Asian stocks pared early gains on Friday as investors cautiously turned their focus to stimulus announcements from China later in the day with Beijing’s week-long legislative meeting drawing to a close.
Regional equities had started the day by tracking Wall Street’s overnight rise to record highs, with investors digesting the Federal Reserve’s message for careful interest rate cuts even with expectations for big fiscal spending under incoming President Donald Trump.
An MSCI gauge of Asia-Pacific stocks was up 0.33% as of 0552 GMT, after earlier rising as much as 0.78%.
The index remained on track for a 2.7% rally this week, after quickly recovering from a knee-jerk dip on U.S. election night, which spurred worries of debilitating trade tariffs, not least in China.
This is an intra-day update
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