Shares gain 297 points on expected inflows after Geneva donors' conference.

Shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) recovered on Tuesday, with analysts attributing the bounce-back to the pledges of over $10 billion made at a donors' conference hosted jointly by the government of Pakistan and the United Nations in Geneva yesterday as well as Saudi Arabia's decision to study increasing investment in Pakistan.

The benchmark KSE-100 index rose 296.74 points, or 0.73 per cent, to close at 40,801.50 points. It reached an intraday high of 481.68 points, or 1.19pc, around 9:30am shortly after trading began.

Arif Habib Corporation's Ahsan Mehanti said stocks showed bullish activity after the pledges made at the fundraising conference in Geneva and a likely positive outcome of the ninth review of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) $7bn programme.

'Speculations about the earnings season played a catalyst role in the bullish activity,' he added.

Three other analysts who spoke to Dawn.com also attributed the stock market's rise to the donors' conference.

Dalal Securities CEO Siddique Dalal termed both the conference and Saudi Arabia's plans 'good news'. He noted that the KSE-100 index recovered sharply in the morning but later erased some of the gains because of a dip in the prices of oil sector shares.

'I believe the country will get some breathing space, survive the next six months, and not default.' He added, however, that the market would remain range-bound in the long run unless the IMF's ninth review was completed and the difference between the USD-PKR exchange rate in the interbank, open and grey markets was narrowed.

'It remains to be seen what immediate effect [the pledges] will have. However, this is very encouraging and there has been a symbolic...