KARACHI:
Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Wednesday staged a strong rally where the benchmark KSE-100 index climbed more than 2% as aggressive buying in heavyweight sectors reflected growing investor confidence in the country’s economic outlook.
The KSE-100 closed at 184,050.10, up 3,748.40 points, or 2.08%. It touched the intra-day high of 184,234 after slipping to the low of 180,566, with sustained buying propelling the market sharply higher.
The rally was driven by strong demand for stocks of commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies, oil marketing firms, cement manufacturers, auto assemblers and power generation companies.
Market sentiment remained buoyant on expectations of continued macroeconomic stability, easing inflation and the possibility of further monetary easing in the coming months. The optimism was reinforced after official data showed that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) eased to 11.1% year-on-year in June from 11.7% in May, while average inflation for FY26 stood at 7.06% compared with 4.5% in FY25, reflecting the impact of higher energy and transportation costs.
Besides, the potential for stronger corporate earnings, improving external-sector indicators and ongoing engagement with international financial institutions also encouraged fresh stock buying.
According to KTrade Securities, Wednesday marked the first trading session of the new financial year (FY27), which remained bullish. The KSE-100 surged 3,748 points (+2.08%), reflecting exceptionally strong investor sentiment. Trading activity remained robust, with 472 million shares changing hands in the KSE-100 index.
The rally was overwhelmingly driven by the banking sector, which dominated market performance throughout the session. Major contributions came from heavyweights, particularly UBL, Meezan Bank, HBL, MCB Bank and Bank AL Habib as strong buying interest in the sector powered the benchmark index to notch up significant gains. Most other sectors played a limited role during the day’s advance.
Going forward, market sentiment is expected to get support from subdued oil prices following the US-Iran agreement, although renewed geopolitical uncertainty will remain a key factor. Investors are also likely to shift their focus towards the upcoming corporate earnings season, KTrade said.
Arif Habib Limited (AHL) observed that the KSE-100 registered an aggressive upward momentum, gaining 2.08% to close above 184k. On the index, 63 shares rose while 37 fell with UBL (+7.87%), Meezan Bank (+7.08%) and MCB (+5.18%) contributing the most to the day’s gains. On the other side, PSX (-3.72%), Fatima Fertiliser (-1.76%) and Fauji Fertiliser (-0.17%) were the biggest index drags.
In corporate news, Lucky Cement (+0.61%) increased its production capacity to 5.35 million tons at the Karachi plant, which took the company’s total capacity to 15.6 million tons per year.
“The aggressive gains we have been anticipating since the breach of 175k are now here and we continue to expect an additional upside to target the January 2026 highs,” commented AHL.
Overall trading volumes increased to 941.5 million shares compared to Tuesday’s tally of 703.7 million. The value of traded shares stood at Rs57 billion.
In the ready market, shares of 490 companies were traded. Of these, 297 stocks closed higher, 171 dropped and 22 remained unchanged.
K-Electric was the volume leader with trading in 82.7 million shares, losing Rs0.21 to close at Rs8.33. Foreign investors bought shares worth Rs494.6 million, the National Clearing Company reported.
