An initial buying spree made way for selling pressure as investors took a stock of Pakistan’s economic condition despite the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approving Pakistan’s 37-month Extended Fund Facility (EFF) of about $7 billion.
The KSE-100 started the session positive, hitting a historic intra-day high of 82,905.73.
However, selling in the latter hours pushed the index below 82,000.
At close, the benchmark index settled at 81,657.97, down by 589.95 points or 0.72%.
Experts Business Recorder reached out to said all positive news had been incorporated, making way for some consolidation, profit-taking, and taking stock of Pakistan’s economic situation that is currently still precarious.
Most analysts generally see the IMF programme as an overall positive for Pakistan as it gives the government a much-needed roadmap for economic reforms, a task Islamabad tends to shy away from.
On Wednesday, the IMF Executive Board considered Pakistan’s request and authorised to immediately release the first loan tranche of nearly $1.1 billion, likely to be received by September 30.
The same day, PSX had also witnessed a bullish session as the benchmark KSE-100 Index closed higher by 764 points, settling at 82,247.92 ahead of the IMF Board meeting.
Globally, Asian stocks bucked the global trend to extend a rally on Thursday, fuelled by persistent optimism over China’s aggressive stimulus package, although there were signs some of that enthusiasm was starting to ebb.
The sea of green across equities in Asia came even as Wall Street closed lower overnight with global stock indexes giving up their gains from earlier in the week.
Still, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose more than 1% to an over two-year high on Thursday. Japan’s Nikkei surged 2.4%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index similarly advanced 1.5%, while the mainland CSI300 blue-chip index reversed early losses to last trade 0.3% higher.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee registered a marginal gain against the US dollar on Thursday, appreciating 0.06% in the inter-bank market. At close, the currency settled at 277.69, a gain of Re0.16 against the US dollar.
Volume on the all-share index increased to 423.94 million from 422.16 million on Wednesday.
The value of shares decreased to Rs17.67 billion from Rs18.38 billion in the previous session.
PIA Holding Company was the volume leader with 36.33 million shares, followed by WorldCall Telecom with 33.11 million shares, and Kohinoor Spinning with 25.82 million shares.
Shares of 444 companies were traded on Thursday, of which 125 registered an increase, 263 recorded a fall, while 56 remained unchanged.