KSE-100 powers past 40,000-mark in bullish trade
Bulls held ground at the stock market on Thursday and helped extend gains from the preceding session on back of surge in global financial markets. An uptick in global equities enticed market participants at the local bourse to renew investments and assume fresh positions, thus pushing the KSE-100 index past the 40,000-point barrier. Surging global oil prices further encouraged investment in local oil scrips and aided them to close the session in green. At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 503.66 points, or 1.26 percent, to settle at 40,353.62 points. Overall, trading volumes rose to 476.9 million shares compared with Wednesday’s tally of 431.9 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs15.8 billion. Shares of 411 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 240 stocks closed higher, 115 declined and 16 remained unchanged. Hascol Petroleum was the volume leader with 107.8 million shares, gaining Rs0.76 to close at Rs17.58. It was followed by Unity Foods with 56.3 million shares, gaining Rs0.73 to close at Rs16.59 and TRG Pakistan with 20.7 million shares, gaining Rs1.2 to close at Rs46.39.
Market ends higher for 7th day; bank index ends 3pc higher; wipro top nifty gainer
Indian shares ended higher on Friday led by gains in financials after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) kept interest rates unchanged at 4 percent in the face of high inflation, while also retaining its accommodative stance. The Sensex ended 327 points higher at 40,509 while the Nifty rose 79 points to settle at 11,914. For the week, the indices ended over 4 percent higher. The RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the country’s gross domestic product may break out of the coronavirus-induced contraction and turn positive by the fourth quarter of 2020. He added that the GDP is expected to contract by 9.5 percent in FY21, with risks to the downside. Post the policy, the banking and financial indices surged on liquidity boosting measures. The Nifty Bank surged 2.8 percent while the Nifty Fin Services jumped 1.8 percent. Nifty IT also added 0.6 percent for the day. However, Nifty Realty shed 1.6 percent and the pharma index was down 1.3 percent. Nifty Auto, Nifty FMCG and Nifty Metal also ended the day in the red. On the Nifty50 index, Wipro, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, SBI, and HDFC Bank were the top gainers while Grasim, Hindalco, UPL, Sun Pharma and SBI Life led the losses.
Saudi Arabia stocks higher at close of trade; tadawul all share up 0.64pc
Saudi Arabia stocks were higher after the close on Thursday, as gains in the Energy & Utilities, Media & Publishing and Cement sectors led shares higher. At the close in Saudi Arabia, the Tadawul All Share gained 0.64 percent to hit a new 6-months high. Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Saudi Arabia Stock Exchange by 107 to 83 and 11 ended unchanged. Crude oil for November delivery was up 2.83 percent or 1.13 to $41.08 a barrel. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Brent oil for delivery in December rose 2.79 percent or 1.17 to hit $43.16 a barrel, while the December Gold Futures contract rose 0.11 percent or 2.05 to trade at $1892.85 a troy ounce. EUR/SAR was down 0.17 percent to 4.4036, while USD/SAR rose 0.01 percent to 3.7512. The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.11 percent at 93.780.
FTSE 100 finishes in the green; US markets teeter on coronavirus stimulus developments
The FTSE 100 ended the day up 31 points, 0.5 percent, at 5,978. Its FTSE 250 counterpart had a stronger showing, closing up 144 points, 0.8 percent, at 17,946.2. As Trump has gone, so often have the markets. Earlier in the week, the Donald declared that the discussions were brought to an end, and that there would be no stimulus scheme until after the election, but now there has been a U-turn, and it would not be the first time that the US leader changed his mind in a short period of time. Traders reacted well to the news, especially seeing as European markets underperformed against their US equivalents yesterday. In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 19 points, less than 0,1 percent just after noon. The Nasdaq gained 50 points, 0.4 percent, to 11,415.5, and the S&P 500 improved 16 points, 0.5 percent, to 3,435.6. The index of blue-chip shares rose 41 points (0.7 percent) to 5,987, bringing it back in sight of the 6,000 level. On futures exchanges, the December contract for Brent crude was up US$1.16 at US$43.15 a barrel.