KARACHI – Pakistan Stock Exchange remained positive throughout the sessionFriday as the KSE-100 Index appeared to not be fazed by the arrival ofNawaz Sharif in Lahore.
The Benchmark KSE-100 index continued its upward streak with positivesentiments as the market closed the session in green with gain of +395.88points to record at 40271 points.
The Bull Run witnessed on local bourse as it registered a surge of 1percnet. This Bull Run primarily led by indexed heavy sector banking on theback of anticipation of another 50-bps hike in policy rate.
Excitement was mostly attributable to the gains in banking stocks likeHabib Bank Limited (HBL) with 5 percent gains, United Bank Limited (UBL)with 4.99 percent gains , MCB with 5 percent advancement , Allied BankLimited (ABL) with 5 percent increase and Bank Alflah (BAHL) with 3.83percent surge in value as most market participants are expecting hike inpolicy rate.
“We are expecting 50bps hike in monetary policy announcement today, whichis inline with market consensus”, said an analyst at Ismail IqbalSecurities.
Traded volumes increased by 12 percent to 124.7 shares traded over 108.4million shares traded in previous day’s session while value traded tooincreased by 18.75 percent to Rs 5.7 billion. Volume leaders were Bank ofPunjab with 18.6 million shares traded, Engro Polymer with 5.5 millionshares traded and K-Electric with 5.4 million shares traded.