Buying returns to PSX, KSE-100 settles above 114,000 level

After experiencing selling pressure in the last two trading sessions, positivity returned to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) with the benchmark KSE-100 Index closing above the 114,000 level on Thursday.

Buying was seen throughout the trading session, pushing the benchmark index to an intra-day high of 114,319.62.

At close, the KSE-100 Index settled at 114,037.79, an increase of 594.36 points or 0.52%.

This recovery follows a sharp decline on Wednesday when the KSE-100 Index settled lower by nearly 1,600 points at 113,443.43 amid late-session selling.

Globally, Asia shares rose on Thursday, helped by a jump in their Chinese counterparts on Beijing’s latest measures to shore up its crumbling stock market, while elsewhere, investors continued to have their eyes on US President Donald Trump’s policy plans.

China on Thursday announced a plan to guide hundreds of billions of yuan of new capital from state-owned insurers into stocks each year, in a sign of Beijing’s concern about sagging Chinese stocks, which surged on the back of the announcements.

The CSI300 blue-chip index advanced 1.47% shortly after the open, while the Shanghai Composite Index jumped 1.62%.

Trump on Tuesday said his administration was discussing a 10% punitive duty on Chinese imports because fentanyl is being sent from China to the U.S. via Mexico and Canada.

The big moves in Chinese stocks helped lift MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan up 0.11%, reversing its losses from earlier in the session.

Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei ticked up 0.47%.

In the broader market, global shares gave up some of the enthusiasm from Trump’s mammoth spending plans for artificial intelligence infrastructure that had turbocharged a rally in technology stocks.