KARACHI – The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) saw shares trading positively on Friday, with the KSE-100 index rising more than 700 points during intraday trade.
By 12:16 PM, the KSE-100 index stood at 75,609.82, marking a gain of 731.70 points or 0.98% from its previous close of 74,836.30.
Mohammed Sohail, CEO of Topline Securities, remarked that the market was “recovering amid expectations that inflation data, likely to be released tomorrow, will be lower than 14%.”
He also noted the excitement generated by today’s MSCI rebalancing.
Raza Jafri, CEO of EFG Hermes Pakistan, attributed this upward trend to the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI)’s semi-annual index rebalancing occurring today, which is expected to attract further foreign buying.
“Investors are also anticipating a softer inflation reading, with the announcement expected on Monday. Both these factors are driving the KSE-100 up today,” Jafri added.
Yousuf M. Farooq, Director of Research at Chase Securities, stated: “The market rallied this morning on the expectation of a rate cut in the upcoming Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting.”
“Inflation is expected to come in close to 13.5%, and with interest rates at 22% and T-Bills hovering around 21%, expectations for a rate cut have increased,” he said, adding that the upcoming budget, the next IMF programme, and the next MPC meeting “will be key events for the market over the next month.”
