After a few dull trading sessions, the Pakistan Stock Exchange saw a surge in buying activity on Friday, pushing its main index, the KSE-100, above 73,000 points for the first time ever.
The trading day began positively, with the KSE-100 reaching an intra-day high of 73,449.37 points. Although some selling occurred during the day, buyers mostly controlled the market until the session ended.
By closing, the benchmark index stood at 73,085.50 points, up by 427.45 points or 0.59%. Hong Kong shares also rose, influenced by news that China might exempt individual investors from paying dividend taxes on Hong Kong stocks bought via Stock Connect.
Across the region, MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index increased by 0.65%, while Japan’s Nikkei index went up by 0.26%.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee slightly strengthened against the US dollar, gaining 0.03% in the inter-bank market on Friday. The local currency closed at 278.12 against the greenback, according to the State Bank of Pakistan.
Trading activity on the PSX showed an increase, with the volume on the all-share index rising to Rs741.2 million from Rs675 million in the previous session. The value of shares traded also rose to Rs25.27 billion from Rs24.05 billion.
Among the actively traded stocks, WorldCall Telecom led with 85.72 million shares, followed by Hum Network with 51.46 million shares, and Pak Elektron with 33.64 million shares.
In total, 381 companies’ shares were traded, out of which 217 saw gains, 132 experienced losses, and 32 remained unchanged.
