By BR Web Desk

Copyright brecorder

A day after a flattish session, bulls returned to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), with the benchmark KSE-100 Index crossing the 158,000 level during the intra-day trading on Thursday.

At 3:25pm, the benchmark index was hovering at 158,073.15, an increase of 1,895.34 points or 1.21%.

Buying interest was observed across key sectors, including automobile assemblers, cement, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs, refinery and power generation. Index-heavy stocks, including HUBCO, ARL, MARI, OGDC, POL, PPL, PSO, SSGC, HBL, MEBL, MCB and UBL traded in the green.

“The signing of a defence pact between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia drove the momentum in the market,” Sana Tawfik, Head of Research at Arif Habib Limited, told Business Recorder.

Moreover, the market is also expecting a development in the refinery sector, she added.

In a major development, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed “the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA)” on Thursday during Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to Riyadh. The agreement clearly states: “Any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both.”

On Wednesday, PSX witnessed an active yet cautious trading session marked by heavy investor participation but little movement in market direction. The benchmark KSE-100 Index closed almost flat, shedding just 3.12 points to settle at 156,177.82 points.

Globally, stock markets were choppy on Thursday after the Federal Reserve delivered its first rate cut this year but signalled a measured approach to further monetary policy easing, leaving investors in doubt about the pace of future moves.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.1% as declines in Australian and New Zealand markets weighed on the wider benchmark, while Chinese stocks veered between gains and losses.

There were signs of strength in some markets, however, as US equity futures advanced 0.4% after an uneven session on Wall Street overnight, while shares in South Korea jumped 0.8% and those in Taiwan rallied 0.4%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 tacked on 1%.

Global stocks stumbled on Wednesday after hitting a record high in the wake of the Fed’s quarter-point rate cut and indications it would steadily lower borrowing costs for the rest of this year.

However, in post-meeting comments, Fed Chair Jerome Powell tempered the more aggressive easing expectations in markets, saying Wednesday’s move was a risk-management cut and the central bank did not need to move quickly on rates.

This is an intra-day update