Bullish trend returned to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) as the benchmark KSE-100 jumped over 800 points in intra-day trading, hitting the 65,200 level before retreating more than half its gains to close with an increase of around 300 points on Wednesday.
Throughout the trading session, the benchmark index oscillated between gains and losses.
At 1pm, the KSE-100 index was hit its intra-day high of 65,244.60 level, an increase of 895 points or 1.39%.
However, at close, the index had retreated to settle at 64,646.85, still an increase of 297.25 points or 0.46%.
A mixed trend was witnessed during the trading session among the index-heavy sectors including automobile assemblers, cement, chemical, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies and OMCs.
On Tuesday, bearish sentiments were witnessed as the benchmark index registered a loss of over 312 points to settle at 64,349.60 level.
Experts said overall positivity is over a slight improvement in economic indicators, while fresh liquidity is being injected by different sectors on account of a new month.
In the inter-bank market, the Pakistani rupee registered gains against the US dollar, declining 0.06% to settle at 281.72 on Wednesday.
The country’s trade deficit shrunk by over 40% to $1.7 billion in December 2023 from $2.84 billion in the same period of the last year, showed data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Tuesday.
Exports improved significantly by 22.2% to $2.8 billion in December 2023 from $2.3 billion in same month of the previous year. On the other hand, imports reduced by 12.25% to $4.51 billion in December 2023 from $5.14 billion in the same month last year.
Globally, Asian markets fell Wednesday in line with a sell-off across most of the world as traders took their cash off the table after a blockbuster end to 2023, with eyes now on the release this week of Federal Reserve minutes and US jobs data.
Equities surged in the last two months of last year on expectations the US central bank will slash interest rates several times this year as inflation comes down, the labour market softens and the economy heads towards a soft landing.
However, analysts had warned that the rally was going a little too far and investors should prepare for a pullback, with tech titans such as Apple and Amazon likely to take a hit.
Meanwhile, volume on the all-share index decreased to 639.6 million from 671.7 million a session before.
The value of shares also declined to Rs20.3 billion from Rs24.5 billion in the previous session.
K-Electric Ltd was the volume leader with 127.8 million shares, followed by PTCL with 50.4 million shares, and Pak Refinery at 35.8 million shares.
Shares of 366 companies were traded on Wednesday, of which 190 registered an increase, 159 recorded a fall, while 17 remained unchanged.