Bulls bounced back on the trading floor on Tuesday as shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange climbed more than 800 points after a day of volatility.
The benchmark KSE-100 index climbed 808.28 points, or 0.71 per cent, to stand at 114,872.18 from the previous close of 114,063.90.
Awais Ashraf, director of research at AKD Securities, said, attributed the bull run to the announcement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Executive Board meeting “to approve a tranche of $1.3 billion for Pakistan under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and a new 28-month arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility”.
Earlier, the IMF website confirmed that the Fund’s Executive Board will meet on May 9 to discuss the country’s staff-level agreement for a new $1.3bn arrangement under a climate resilience loan programme, along with the first review of Pakistan’s ongoing $7bn bailout programme.
According to the IMF, this will be the first “review under the Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility”, along with the request for an arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF).
Ashraf added that this “redirected attention from the border dispute with India to the country’s macroeconomic improvement efforts”.
Yesterday, after a positive start, the concerns about Pakistan’s economic outlook and rising tensions with India prompted equity investors to engage in panic selling towards the end of the session.
An analyst had said the share market fell across the board as investors weighed heightened geopolitical tensions, suspension of the Indus Water Treaty, and stalled bilateral trade by New Delhi.
Last week, the April 22 attack in Pahalgam saw 26 people, mostly tourists, killed in what is being described as the deadliest armed attack in the disputed Himalayan region since the year 2000.
Since the incident, the nuclear-armed nations have unleashed a raft of measures against each other, with India unilaterally suspending the critical Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) and Pakistan retaliating by threatening to put the Simla Agreement in abeyance and closing its airspace for Indian flights.
Topline Securities Ltd observed that the PSX witnessed a classic tug-of-war between bulls and bears. The index opened positively, gaining momentum in the early hours to register an intraday gain of 1,189 points. However, the optimism proved short-lived, as intensified selling pressure later in the session caused the index to reverse sharply, touching an intraday loss of 1,601 points. The market eventually closed at 114,063.90 — down by 1,405.45 points or 1.22pc day-on-day.
