Shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) opened the year in green, buoyed by investor interest in the fertiliser and energy sectors.<\/p>\n
The benchmark KSE-100 index gained 568.33 points, or 1.41 per cent, to reach 40,988.78 points at 12:43pm.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn increase in urea prices is leading to investor interest in the fertiliser sector, while expectations of circular debt resolution continue to lift the energy sector,\u201d Head of Equity at Intermarket Securities Raza Jafri said.<\/p>\n
He added, however, that the market needed some \u201ccomfort\u201d on the balance of payments position for the bounce to sustain.
\nArif Habib Corporation\u2019s Ahsan Mehanti said the rally was led by the oil and banking sectors as investors weighed surging global crude oil prices and the finance minister\u2019s affirmation of completing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme and subverting default.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeculations ahead of corporate earning announcements and expectations for early resolve to gas circular debt crisis played a catalyst role in bullish activity,\u201d he commented.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, former PSX director Zafar Moti attributed the stock market\u2019s rise to reports that letters of credit (LCs) were being opened, and the State Bank of Pakistan\u2019s (SBP) recent decision to lift curbs on the import of essential items.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will lead to ease of doing business for importers and items that [were stuck] at the port will now be available in the market. Once poultry feed is imported, the prices of eggs and poultry will also reduce. This is good news for the market,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Prices of urea fertiliser, which is in high demand for wheat crops these days, have been increased by around 8pc.<\/p>\n
A notice issued by Engro Fertilisers Limited last week said that its brand of urea compost would be marketed at a rate of Rs2,440 per 50kg bag from Jan 1, 2023, an increase of Rs190 per bag.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the company claimed that the increase was forced because of rising production costs.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Engro Fertilisers Limited\u2019s shares were up Rs3.44, or 4.47pc, at 11:10am.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the energy sector was also performing well, with Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (PPL) shares up Rs4.36 or 6.40pc; Cynergyico Pk Limited\u2019s up Rs0.19 or 5.15pc; and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines\u2019s (SNGPL) up Rs1.17 or 4.55pc.<\/p>\n
The energy sector was behind the index\u2019s rally in the last few trading days of 2022 following the government\u2019s constitution of a committee for the settlement of circular debt in the gas sector.<\/p>\n
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had directed the committee on Dec 29 to finalise its report within three working days to resolve the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) opened the year in green, buoyed by investor interest in the fertiliser and energy sectors. The benchmark KSE-100 index gained 568.33 points, or 1.41 per cent, to reach 40,988.78 points at 12:43pm. \u201cAn increase in urea prices is leading to investor interest in the fertiliser sector, while expectations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":111267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111268,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111266\/revisions\/111268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/111267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}