The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) staged a strong rally on Wednesday with the benchmark KSE-100 Index climbing more than 2% as aggressive buying across heavyweight sectors reflected growing investor confidence in the country’s improving economic outlook.
The KSE-100 index closed at 184,050.10, up 3,748.40 points, or 2.08%, from the previous session. The benchmark touched an intraday high of 184,233.58 after slipping to a low of 184,233.58, before sustained buying propelled the market sharply higher.
The rally gathered momentum throughout the session, driven by strong demand in commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies, oil marketing companies, cement manufacturers, automobile assemblers, and power generation stocks, with index-heavy shares leading the advance.
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 consumer price inflation (CPI) eased to 11.1% year-on-year in June from 11.7% in May, while average inflation stood at 7.06% in FY26 compared to 4.5% in FY25, reflecting the impact of higher energy and transportation costs during the fiscal year. Optimism over stronger corporate earnings, improving external sector indicators, and ongoing engagement with international financial institutions also encouraged fresh buying.
Market watchers believe investors continued to rotate into fundamentally strong sectors expected to benefit from lower borrowing costs and an improving business environment, helping the benchmark index post one of its strongest single-day gains in recent months.
Read: Investor optimism powers PSX above 180k
According to KTrade Securities, Wednesday marked the first trading session of the new financial year (FY27), and it proved to be a bullish one. The KSE-100 index closed at 184,050 points, surging 3,748 points (+2.08% DoD), reflecting exceptionally strong investor sentiment.
Meanwhile, trading activity remained robust, with 472 million shares exchanged 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 banking heavyweights, particularly United Bank, Meezan Bank, Habib Bank, MCB and Bank Al Habib as strong buying interest in the sector powered the benchmark index to record gains, while most other sectors played only a limited role in today’s advance.
Going forward, market sentiment is expected to remain supported by subdued oil prices following the United States-Iran agreement, although renewed geopolitical uncertainty will remain a key monitor. Investors are also likely to shift their focus towards the upcoming corporate earnings season, with listed companies expected to begin issuing result notices in the coming weeks, KTrade wrote.
Overall, trading volume increased to 941.4 million shares from 703.6 million recorded a day ago while the value of traded shares stood at Rs57 billion.
Further, shares of 490 companies were traded, of which 297 stocks closed higher, 171 fell, and 22 remained unchanged. K-Electric was the volume leader with trading in 86.7 million shares, losing Rs0.21 to close at Rs8.33.Latest News, Breaking News & Top News Stories | The Express TribuneOur CorrespondentRead More