The buying rally continued at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining over 500 points during the intraday trading on Thursday.
At 12:35pm, the benchmark index hovered at 113,907.75, an increase of 565.32 points or 0.5%.
Buying interest was observed in key sectors including automobile assemblers, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs, refineries and power generation. Index-heavy stocks including HUBCO, PRL, PSO, SHEL, SNGPL, MARI, OGDC, MCB, MEBL and UBL traded in the green.
On Wednesday, bullish momentum continued at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), with the benchmark KSE-100 Index closing the day at 113,342.44, up by 253.96 points or 0.22%.
On the global front, Asian shares fell sharply on Thursday, tracking choppy trading on Wall Street and a dip in European stocks as US President Donald Trump’s tariff plans and a cautious stance from Federal Reserve policymakers hurt risk sentiment.
The risk-off mood lifted gold prices to a record high, while safe-haven currencies led by the Japanese yen also firmed on geopolitical worries.
Trump said on Tuesday that sector-wide tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductor chips would start at “25% or higher,” rising substantially over a year.
He intends to impose similar tariffs on autos as soon as April 2.
That along with other threats has exacerbated fears of a wide-ranging trade war, leaving investors jittery, although some analysts see the moves by Trump as a negotiation tool.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei slid 1.4% on the strong yen.
Chinese stocks had a muted start to the session, with the blue-chip index down 0.4%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slid 1.7%, having touched a four-month high earlier this week boosted by a blistering rally in tech stocks.
On Thursday, Hang Seng’s tech stocks index fell more than 3%, on course for its worst one-day drop in three months. Still, the index is up nearly 6% so far in February.
This is an intra-day update
