Staff Reporter
Karachi
Stocks rallied on Friday on back of the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) surprising move to slash the country’s interest rate by 100 basis points to 7%.
The KSE-100 index took off to a flying start, hitting an intra-day high of 319 points as it powered past the 34,000-mark. However, some selling activity tempered gains as the index finished 230 points up, just a few points shy of the 34,000-mark.
At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 229.86 points, or 0.68%, to settle at 33,939.49 points. Moreover, exploration and production sector that could have benefited from the overnight bounce back in international crude prices failed to reciprocate and saw muted response during the session. Meanwhile, banking sector stocks declined further as a result of policy rate cut but couldn’t place significant volumes on the bourse. Friday, also happened to be the last day of the roll-over week but didnl not cause much of an impact on stock prices, the report maintained. Cement sector led the volumes with 43.9 million shares, followed by technology (23.8 million) and refinery (14.4 million).
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include FFC (up 57 points), HUBC (43 points), ENGRO (40 points), LUCK (31 points) and DGKC (26 points). While, stocks that contributed negatively include BAFL (down 20 points), HBL (18 points), DAWH (16 points), UBL (12 points)
