The stock market made a commotion in the previous session as the KSE-100 index rose nearly 180 points on bets of status quo in the monetary policy and closed near the 45,000-point mark.
The market initiated trading Thursday on a positive note as investors wanted shares for value buying that had become much attractive after massive selling.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) had decided to announce the monetary policy towards the end of the session, where most believed the policy rate would be kept unchanged at 7%.
As per market expectations later, the central bank maintained the status quo and kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 7% for the next two months.
At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 177.22 points, or 0.4%, to settle at 44,901.31 points.
Arif Habib Limited, in its report, stated that the market followed the trend witnessed the previous day by retreating 331 points in the first session, but it bounced back strongly and added a total of 448 points. The index closed up by 177 points.
In its monetary policy decision, the SBP left the rate unchanged, which was announced after the end of the trading session. Refinery, cement, steel, oil and gas marketing sectors performed well in the latter part of the session.
Sectors contributing to the performance included power (+49 points), technology (+42 points), oil and gas marketing companies (+42 points), refinery (+27 points) and pharmaceutical (+22 points).
Individually, stocks that contributed positively to the index included HBL (+60 points), Pakistan State Oil (+31 points), TRG Pakistan (+25 points), Hubco (+22 points) and Systems Limited (+17 points).
Stocks that contributed negatively were Oil and Gas Development Company (-27 points), UBL (-24 points), Indus Motor (-19 points), Fauji Fertiliser (-16 points) and Bank AL Habib (-14 points).
Overall trading volumes fell to 484.6 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 554.1 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs21.8 billion.
Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs148.9 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.
