Buying rally continued at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), with the benchmark KSE 100 index gaining nearly 2% during the opening hours of trading on Friday.
At 10:53am, the benchmark index was hovering at 173,263.23 points, up by 3351.28 points or 1.97%.
On the index front, oil and gas exploration, OMCs, automobile, cement, commercial banks, and chemical sectors emerged as key gainers.
On Thursday, the KSE-100 Index exhibited robust performance during the session, gaining 1,392.01 points or 0.83% to close at 169,911.95 points, compared to the previous close of 168,519.94 points
Meanwhile, Asian stocks were poised for a second week of strong gains and MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.6%, but remained close to its highest since March 2, the first trading day after the Iran war broke out.
The index is up 14.5% in April after dropping 13.5% in March. Japan’s Nikkei fell 0.9% in early trading after hitting a record high on Thursday. Almost all stock markets are back to levels before the war erupted at the end of February.
For Andrew Chorlton, CIO for public fixed income at M&G, the last two weeks have been surprising in how quickly markets have been willing to look through the conflict and energy shock, as per Reuters.
“There’s quite a strong contrast between what policymakers and central bankers are saying about the risks that this (conflict) is creating versus what the market is implying,” he said.
“That seems somewhat complacent,” Chorlton added. “It seems unlikely that there shouldn’t be some additional risk premium priced in, either to growth or to inflation.”
This is an intra-day report
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