Selling pressure gripped the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding over 1,700 points during the second half of the trading session on Friday.
At 4:20pm, the benchmark index was hovering at 154,397.14, a decrease of 1,744.10 points or 1.12%.
Selling was observed in key sectors including commercial banks, fertiliser, oil and gas exploration companies, refinery and power generation. Index-heavy stocks, including NRL, HUBCO, MARI, OGDC, PPL, POL, MCB, MEBL, NBP and UBL, traded in the red.
On Thursday, PSX closed the session in negative territory as profit-taking dominated the trading floor, snapping the bullish streak seen in earlier sessions. The benchmark KSE-100 Index shed 879.55 points, or 0.56%, to close at 156,141.25.
Internationally, Asian share markets followed Wall Street higher on Friday as the growing prospect of several more US rate cuts promised to lower borrowing costs globally, a relief to stressed bond markets and a drag on the dollar.
Indexes in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan all scaled record peaks, urged on by extravagant expectations for AI-related earnings growth.
The US consumer price report had been the last major hurdle to the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates next week, and it proved unthreatening, if a little firm.
Indeed, costs in the CPI that feed into the Fed’s preferred measure of core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) were on the soft side, leading analysts at Citi to predict a steady reading of 2.9% for August.
Markets continue to imply a 100% chance of a quarter-point cut to 4.00%-4.25% next week, and ramped up the probability of two further easings this year to around 90%.
The Treasury market has already eased in anticipation, with 10-year yields down 20 basis points in the past two weeks, effectively a rate cut given mortgage rates are tied to yields in the United States.
That drop helped soothe concerns in some other major bond markets, particularly in Europe, pressured by political uncertainty and expanding fiscal burdens.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei climbed 0.6% to another all-time high, bringing gains this week to 3.7%. South Korea added 1.1%, taking its weekly rise to more than 5%.
Chinese blue chips edged up 0.2% to the highest since early 2022. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan jumped 1.2%.
This is an intra-day update
