Positive sentiments were observed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), as investors rejoiced over Moody’s Ratings’ improvement in Pakistan’s credit rating, pushing the benchmark KSE-100 Index above the 147,000 level during the opening hours of trading on Friday.
At 9:40am, the benchmark index was hovering at 147,290.11 level, an increase of 760.81 points or 0.52%.
Buying interest was seen in key sectors including automobile assemblers, commercial banks, fertilizer, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs and refinery. Index-heavy stocks including ARL, NRL, OGDC, POL, PPL, PSO, MCB, MEBL and NBP traded in the green.
Analysts attributed the buying rally to improvement in investor sentiments after Moody’s on Wednesday upgraded the government of Pakistan’s local and foreign currency issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings to Caa1 from Caa2.
The global rating agency also upgraded the rating for the senior unsecured MTN programme to (P)Caa1 from (P)Caa2 and concurrently changed the outlook for the government of Pakistan to stable from positive.
