The long-awaited moment for the stock market arrived on Thursday when the KSE-100 index performed the incredible feat of crossing comfortably over the 30,000 points level.
The ravaging bulls tossed the index up by 400.94 points or 1.35 per cent to 30,177.11. The volume also jumped 83pc over the previous day to 206 million shares.
The immediate trigger for the bulls was provided by the global rating agency Moody’s upgrade of outlook for Pakistan’s economy to ‘stable’ from ‘negative’. It was sweetened further by the rating agency’s outlook on five Pakistan banks to ‘stable’ from ‘negative’.
All five banks were major gainers on Thursday with ABL up by Rs5.87; HBL by Rs3.66; MCB by Rs5.41; NBP by Re0.69 and UBL by Rs8.35. Elsewhere, PSO rallied by Rs7.67 and Lucky Cement advanced by Rs15.93. Brokers said that cement shares were powered by expectations of healthy June results.
Most market gurus admit that foreign investors have been the engine that drove the market to its all-time high.