Stocks continued their recovery on Monday with the KSE-100 index recouping another 978.51 points (2.23 per cent) on the first trading day of the week as the political certainty of Senate chairman election helped improve investor sentiment.
At the close of the day, the index settled in the green at 44,766.59.
The benchmark index opened at 43,788.08 points, which was also the lowest level seen by the market during intra-day trading. As the bulls took charge, it reached an apex of 44,839.19 points.
In a market review, Topline Securities said the clarity over Senate chairmanship buoyed investor sentiment, while investors “shrugged off concerns of higher inflation and political noise” owing to the opposition’s planned long march and filing of a petition in high court by the PPP to challenge the Senate chairman election.
The major positive contributors today were TRG, PSO, LUCK, SYS and HUBC, which cumulatively added ~327 points to the benchmark index.
Total traded volume and value clocked in at 455.35 million shares (up 2.9pc DoD) and Rs21.95 billion (up 1.6pc DoD), respectively. The volume leader for Monday was TRG with 24.9m shares traded followed by UNITY with 23.63m shares exchanging hands, according to Topline.
The rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations in the United States and some other countries stoked a bullish mood on risk assets in global markets even as investors become wary of key central bank policy meetings later in the week, including the US Federal Reserve’s.
Last week, the KSE-100 index plunged 2,049 points, or 4.5 per cent, to settle at 43,788 points. A relief rally on Friday recovered 1,008 points, though it could not wipe off the blemish of the worst weekly performance in the year both in terms of a slump in points as well as percentage over one year.
The market had last seen such dismal performance in the week ended Mar 27, 2020, with a drop in index by 2,558 points, or 8.3pc, week-on-week.
