Bulls pull KSE-100 above 47,000-point mark

• Benchmark index rises by 138.14 points to settle at 47,113.
• Strong economic cues such as consistent appreciation of rupee, significant growth in exports helped extend the rally at the bourse.
• During the session, shares of 361 listed companies were traded.

KARACHI: The bulls dominated at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) for the fifth consecutive session on Tuesday, pulling the benchmark KSE-100 index above the 47,000-point barrier.

Strong economic cues such as consistent appreciation of the rupee against the US dollar and significant growth in exports helped extend the rally at the bourse.

On Monday, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razzak Dawood said exports had recorded a growth of 17.5% and reached $2.471 billion in October 2021 against $2.104 billion in the corresponding month of the previous year.

Besides, renewed expectations of the resumption of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan programme within this week, coupled with the redeployment of the stock exchange's old trading system bolstered optimism among market participants.

The trading session kicked off with a short-lived spike as investors cherry-picked stocks in the early hours. The index, however, recorded a steady decline soon after, but overall optimism erased most of the losses and breached the index 47,000-point barrier.

At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 138.14 points, or 0.29%, to settle at 47,112.92.

During the session, shares of 361 listed companies were traded. At the end of the session, 174 stocks closed in the green, 171 in the red, and 16 remained unchanged.

Overall trading volumes dropped to 306.2 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 430.1 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs13.8 billion.

Byco Petroleum was the volume leader with 19.3 million shares, gaining Rs0.03 to close at Rs7.50. It was followed by Telecard Limited with 14.4 million shares, losing Rs0.01 to close at Rs17.11, and First National Equities with 10.8 million shares, gaining Rs0.21 to close at Rs8.80.