Roundup: Pakistan's KSE joins Asian rally after Fed rate move

Xinhua News Agency

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Pakistan's Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) joined an Asian bullish rally on Thursday after America's Federal Reserve hiked its key rate for the first time since 2006.

The benchmark KSE 100-Index surged by 1.21 percent or 394.94 points to 33,109.54 points on Thursday when compared with 32,714. 60 points recorded on Wednesday.

The KSE All Share Index augmented by 1.08 percent or 244.60 points to 22,908.14 points, the KSE 30-Index jumped by 1.48 percent or 286.24 points to 19,566.29 points, the KMI 30-Index increased by 1.36 percent or 744.72 points to 55,371.32 points, whereas the Islamic All Share Index rose by 1.03 percent or 156.87 points to 15,453.86 points.

The U.S. Federal Reserve gave a 25 bps uptick to its key discount rate following which Nikkei started with over 2 percent increase, Australia rose 0.7 percent while MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan improved 0.3 percent in early trade action.

During Thursday's trading session, the key index moved in a broader range of 447.45 points as it hit an intraday high of 33, 162.05 points as against an intraday low of 32,714.60 points.

Market volumes reduced by 4.58 percent or 6.829 million shares to 142.182 million shares on Thursday when compared with 149.012 million shares posted on Wednesday.

Market capitalization swelled by 1.09 percent or 74.803 billion rupees (733.371 million U.S. dollars) to 6.946 trillion rupees (68. 106 billion dollars) while trade value ballooned by 28.88 percent or 2.228 billion rupees (21.843 million dollars) to 9.942 billion rupees (97.473 million dollars).

Among 337 active scrips on Thursday, prices of 232 issues advanced, 92 declined, whereas values of 13 other companies stayed unchanged.

TRG Pakistan Limited, Pak Elektron Limited, and Oil and Gas Development Company were the top traded companies with turnovers of 10.730 million shares, 8.831 million shares, and 8.400 million shares, respectively.

Nestle Pakistan was the top price gainer with increment of 90 rupees (88.24 cents) to 7,090 rupees (69.50 dollars) while on the flip side Rafhan Maize led the major price shedders with decrement of 462.50 rupees (4.53 dollars) to 8,787.50 rupees (86.15 dollars).