Selling pressure continued at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), as the benchmark KSE-100 Index lost over 1,400 points during intra-day trading on Wednesday.
At 2:35pm, the benchmark index was hovering at 113,632.18, a decrease of 1,410.07 points or 1.23%.
Selling was witnessed in key sectors including automobile assemblers, commercial banks, fertilizer, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs and power generation. Index-heavy stocks including HUBCO, SSGC, SNGP, OGDC, MARI, PPL, ENGRO, MEBL, NBP and UBL traded in the red.
“We think politics and market concerns around the new US administration are key factors dragging investor sentiment,” said Intermarket Securities in a note.
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The brokerage house said the market may remain rangebound until new positive triggers emerge.
On Tuesday, PSX witnessed a volatile session, as its benchmark KSE-100 Index swayed in both directions before closing the day lower by over 800 points at 115,042.25.
Global stocks gained on Wednesday as a flurry of new policies from US President Donald Trump combined with robust corporate earnings to bolster investor optimism, while tariff uncertainty kept the dollar near two-week lows.
Netflix shares surged 14% in after-hours trading as the streaming giant added a record number of subscribers last quarter, enabling it to increase prices for most service plans in the United States and other countries.
That helped lift Nasdaq futures 0.5% in Asia. S&P 500 futures also rose 0.2%. Late on Tuesday, Trump announced that OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle will form a joint venture called Stargate and invest up to $500 billion in artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Shares of SoftBank surged 9% in Tokyo, while Oracle already gained 7% overnight.
Helping risk sentiment is also relief that Trump did not announce a more comprehensive sweep of tariffs at the start of his second presidency.
Many investors and foreign capitals had expected tariffs to be among a raft of executive orders Trump signed in his first day in office.
However, he did talk up the threat of tariffs again on Tuesday, vowing to hit the European Union with fresh levies.
He also said his administration was discussing imposing a 10% tariff on goods from China on Feb. 1.
This is an intra-day update
Source: Brecorder
