Pakistan stocks broke a four-session losing streak, with the KSE-100 Index posting a steady increase on Friday to finish over the 45,000-point level.

During the trading session, investors shrugged off negative sentiments, hailing Pakistan's revised GDP growth rate for 2020-21, as the benchmark index jumped to an intra-day high of 45,148.92, a gain of 323 points.

At close on Friday, the KSE-100 finished at 45,018.28, a gain of 192.31 points or 0.43%, its first increase during the week.

“The positivity in market can be attributed to a slight decline in international commodity prices and revised GDP growth rate for FY21,” said Topline Securities in its post-market comment.

Oil prices witnessed a decline in the international market, owing to an unexpected rise in U.S. crude and fuel inventories and as investors took profits.

Crude oil prices moved south with WTI crude oil price falling by 1.88% to $83.94 while Brent crude oil price was down by 1.74% to $86.84.

On Thursday, the government revised up its economic growth rate for 2020-21 to 5.37% from 3.9%. Under the new baseline of 2015-16, the growth rate was 5.57% for the same fiscal year.

KSE-100 recovers from over 550-point fall, ends marginally negative

On the economic front, the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) for the week ended January 20, 2022 recorded an increase of 19.36% year-on-year (YoY), while on a weekly basis it went down by 0.06%.

Volumes decreased substantially, clocking in at 176.13 million on the all-share index, down from 254.21 million on Thursday. The value of shares traded decreased to Rs7.07 billion, down from Rs7.74 billion a day ago.

TRG Pakistan Limited was the volume leader with 19.18 million shares, followed by Jahangir Siddiqui Company with 13.77 million shares, and WorldCall Telecom with 12.57 million shares.

Shares of 342 companies were traded on Friday, of which 203 registered an increase, 118 recorded a fall, and 21 remained unchanged.