Bulls celebrate new year with 1,500-rally

Bulls celebrated new year at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) with a new 1,500 point rally on Wednesday in intraday trade.

The KSE-100 index climbed 1544.18, or 1.34 per cent, to stand at 116,681.01 points from the previous close of 115,126.90 at 11:53am.

Awais Ashraf, director reasearch at AKD Securities, noted that the stock market’s perfomance could be attributed to increasing political stability and aggressive monetary easing by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) amid stable currency.

“Macroeconomic stability and a substantial drop in fixed-income yields, in the backdrop of falling commodity prices, have increased the appeal of equities,” he said. “The decline in yields was facilitated by the government’s improved debt management, supported by debt buyback initiatives and strong dividend payout by the central bank.”

Regarding investor confidence, he highlighted that it was further bolstered by mutual funds in the latter half of the year — initially demonstrated by foreign investors and insurance firms in the 1HCY24.

“In the global arena, the KSE-100 Index ranked as the second-best performing market, trailing only Argentina,” he added.

Yesterday, despite the slight dip on the last session of the year, the KSE-100 ended 2024 with an unprecedented 84pc gain, the highest annual return in 22 years, driven by improved economic conditions and a stable political environment, the brokerage house Topline Research said.

The KSE-100’s stellar performance was powered by contributions from banks (13,847 points), fertilisers (11,169 points), and E&P (10,012 points). These sectors collectively accounted for 66pc of the index’s gains, according to Arif Habib Limited.

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