The capital market increased on Thursday as gains in the currency reserve and inflow of mutual fund burned optimism by touching fresh heights.
Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) Benchmark KSE-100 index rose to an intraday height of 137,855.84 and got 1,475.88 points or 1.08%, while the low of the day was at 136,674.98, showing an increase of 295.02 points, or 0.22%.
“Mutual funds have invested more than $ 50 million in stock markets after the budget increased the tax on the money market return as well as SBP reserves are rising,” said independent investments and financial analyst AAH SOMRO.
“This liquidity -supported rally continues in the area 140,000 plus for KSE 100,” he added.
Investor mood remained fluid as Pakistan’s Central Bank Currency Exchange reserves rose by $ 5.12 billion to $ 14.51 billion at the end of FY2025 and surpassed International Monetary Funds (IMF) $ 13.9 billion targets. This is a sharp increase from $ 9.39 billion reported on June 30, 2024.
The increase in reserves reflects a combination of improved dynamics in ongoing accounts and the materialization of planned financial influx.
Although the central bank did not make detailed comments on the leap, it noticed in a statement last month $ 3.10 billion in commercial loans and over $ 500 million from multilateral lenders.
The gain followed a large feature of $ 2.66 billion per year. June 20 due to external refund of debt – the second largest weekly fall on the record. However, the timely rollover restored $ 3.4 billion in Chinese loan confidence.
Of these, $ 1.3 billion was refinanced commercial lending previously repaid by Islamabad, while $ 2.1 billion had been part of SBP’s reserves in the last three years and was renewed in June.
On Wednesday, KSE-100 rose by 440.1 points, or 0.32%, to 136,379.96 points from 135,939.87 points registered in the last session. Today’s highest index remained at 137,232.11 points, while the lowest level was registered at 135,542.89 points.
