The Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 Index closed almost flat on Thursday after a day-long battle between the bullish and bearish forces.

During the day, the KSE-100 hovered around the 61,000 level with an intra-day high of 60,981.68. However, the selling spree erased the gains.

At close, the benchmark index settled at 60,531.27, slightly up 0.05% or 29.27 points.

On Wednesday, a seven-session winning streak came to an end with the benchmark KSE-100 Index ceding 228 points as investors resorted to profit-booking.

Pakistan’s KSE-100 has seen a record year, but how far can the bull run?

In November, the KSE-100 posted a return of 16.6%, highest after Mar’09 (excluding Apr’20 return i.e. 16.7% in post covid month), brokerage house Arif Habib Limited said.

The buying spree came on the back of a staff-level agreement reached between Pakistani authorities and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the first review under the nine-month $3 billion Stand-By Arrangement (SBA).

Moreover, average daily traded volume increased by 81.6% MoM to 655 million shares (highest since Jun’21), while average daily traded value increased by 87.3% DoD to 21.0 billion shares (highest since Jun’21), it added.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Pakistani rupee registered gains against the US dollar for the third consecutive session as it appreciated 0.08% in the inter-bank market. As per the State Bank of Pakistan, the local currency settled at 285.17, an increase of Re0.22.

Volume on the all-share index decreased to 467.1 million from 692.2 million a session before.

The value of shares declined to Rs18.7 billion from Rs27 billion in the previous session.

Fauji Foods Ltd remained the volume leader with 34.5 million shares, followed by Fauji Fert Bin with 33 million shares and WorldCall Telecom with 28.1 million shares.

Shares of 379 companies were traded on Thursday, of which 148 registered an increase, 212 recorded a fall, while 19 remained unchanged.