Bulls celebrated the new year on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) with a fresh rally of 1,500 points on Wednesday in intraday trading.
The KSE-100 index rose 1,544.18, or 1.34 percent, to settle at 116,681.01 points from the previous close of 115,126.90 at 11:53 am.
Awais Ashraf, Head of Research at AKD Securities, said the stock market performance could be attributed to increasing political stability and aggressive monetary easing by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) amid stable currency.
“Macroeconomic stability and a substantial decline in fixed income yields, against a backdrop of falling commodity prices, have increased the attractiveness of stocks,” he said. “The decline in yields was facilitated by improved debt management by the government, supported by debt buyback initiatives and a strong dividend payment by the central bank.”
Regarding investor confidence, he highlighted that it was further reinforced by mutual funds in the second half of the year, initially demonstrated by foreign investors and insurance companies in 1HCY24.
“Globally, the KSE-100 index ranked as the second best performing market, only behind Argentina,” he added.
Yesterday, despite the slight decline in the last session of the year, the KSE-100 ended 2024 with an unprecedented gain of 84%, the highest annual performance in 22 years, driven by improved economic conditions and a stable political environment, according to the brokerage house Topline Research. saying.
The KSE-100’s stellar performance was driven by contributions from banks (13,847 points), fertilizers (11,169 points) and E&P (10,012 points). These sectors together accounted for 66 percent of the index’s gains, according to Arif Habib Limited.
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