Staff reporter Karachi
The Pakistan Stock Exchange breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday as the announcement of assistance worth $3 billion by Saudi Arabia acted as the much-needed positive trigger. As a result, the benchmark KSE-100 index climbed 564 points.
In addition to the $3 billion support to prop up foreign exchange reserves, Riyadh also offered an oil facility amounting to $1.2 billion on deferred payment basis.
Buoyed by the upbeat development, market participants made fresh investment, which triggered a rally at the bourse. A robust recovery of the rupee against the US dollar painted a positive picture of the economy and aided the stock buying activity.
Earlier, trading began on a positive note and the KSE-100 index surged past 45,500 points in early hours. The market accumulated nearly 700 points before trading was interrupted. The bourse resumed activity with minor ups and downs and erased some of the gains by the end of trading.
