Karachi
\nStocks on Tuesday summitted yet another pinnacle, banking on bets of a sizable downward revision in policy rate by the central bank\u2019s monetary panel in the first week of November with macroeconomic outlook largely remaining positive.
\nPakistan Stock Exchange\u2019s (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 shares index gained 668.58 points to hit a record high of 90,864.09 points, after flirting with an intraday high of 91,358.15 points.
\nBrokerage Topline Securities in its market report said: \u201cThis rally highlights the market\u2019s ongoing bullish momentum, fueled by robust corporate earnings that surpassed expectations, strengthening investor confidence.\u201d
\nInstitutional buying further propelled the rally, supporting the positive market sentiment, the brokerage report said.
\n\u201cTrading activity remained strong, with 602 million shares exchanged, amounting to Rs 28 billion, while WorldCall Telecom (WTL) led volumes with 41 million shares traded,\u201d it added.
\nIn a post market note, Ahsan Mehanti, senior analyst at Arif Habib Corp, said the market reached a new all-time high as investors weighed robust financial results and speculated over an imminent policy rate cut by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) next week.
\n\u201cForeign interest in blue-chip banking and fertilisers, along with institutional buying amid easing lending rates, played a catalytic role in the record bullish activity at the PSX,\u201d Mehanti added.
\nIndex-heavy stocks, including Habib Bank Limited (HBL), MCB Bank Limited (MCB), Meezan Bank Limited (MEBL), Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL), Pakistan State Oil (PSO), Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL), and Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), led the rally today.
\nCommenting on the extended rally, Samiullah Tariq, a senior analyst at Arif Habib Limited, attributed the surge to robust corporate results, improved payouts, falling yields, and expectations of further policy rate cuts in the central bank\u2019s upcoming meeting.
\nThe market is alive with speculation about a significant easing of the monetary policy stance on November 4, while strong corporate earnings are fueling buying interest across sectors like auto, cement, banking, energy, and power generation.
\nIn its previous meeting, the SBP\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) announced its most significant rate cut since April 2020, decreasing the key policy rate by 200bps to 17.5% due to moderating inflation and falling international oil prices. The central bank slashed the policy rate by 350bps in July and September 2024, resulting in a cumulative reduction of 450bps since June 2024.
\nIf reduced then it would mark the fourth consecutive rate cut since the SBP began reversing interest rates in June 2024, signalling a notable improvement in the country\u2019s macroeconomic outlook and a shift in the central bank\u2019s monetary policy stance.
\nSpeculations of a policy rate cut of up to 400bps by December are doing rounds of the market, as according to analysts the room for easing exists, which has also rekindled foreign investors\u2019 interest in the country\u2019s capital market. Inflation dropped to 6.9% year-on-year in September 2024, the lowest since January 2021, down from 9.6% in August, driven by the high base effect, easing commodity and energy markets, and a stable currency, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Karachi Stocks on Tuesday summitted yet another pinnacle, banking on bets of a sizable downward revision in policy rate by the central bank\u2019s monetary panel in the first week of November with macroeconomic outlook largely remaining positive. Pakistan Stock Exchange\u2019s (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 shares index gained 668.58 points to hit a record high of 90,864.09 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":62477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72262,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72248\/revisions\/72262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}