KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) extended its gains on Thursday and went north because of overall optimism in the wake of encouraging corporate earnings.
Investors cheered quarterly financial results and the surge in IT exports.
However, political uncertainty and depreciating currency restricted the investors from assuming fresh positions.
At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index closed at 40,276.64 points with an increase of 304 points or 0.76%.
A report from Arif Habib Limited noted that the PSX witnessed a positive session today.
The benchmark KSE-100 index traded in the green zone throughout the day as investors opted for value hunting across the board.
“A rally was observed in the IT sector as IT exports have surged to $ 2.616 billion (the fiscal year 2021-22),” the brokerage house stated, adding that investors' participation remained healthy as hefty volumes were witnessed in the main board and third-tier stocks.
Sectors contributing to the performance include banks (+154.1 points), technology (+93.3 points), exploration and production (+64.9 points), power (+24.7 points), and oil marketing companies (+18.5 points).
Shares of 344 companies were traded during the session. At the close of trading, 215 scrips closed in the green, 104 in the red, and 25 remained unchanged.
Overall trading volumes dropped to 251.27 million shares compared with Wednesday’s tally of 121.57 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs9.34 billion.
WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 32.61 million shares traded, losing Rs0.03 to close at Rs1.15. It was followed by TPL Properties with 20.37 million shares traded, gaining Rs0.69 to close at Rs17.96 and Lotte Chemical Pakistan with 16.95 million shares traded, gaining Rs1.73 to close at Rs30.23.