The Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 Index closed the last session of the week positive, bouncing back from a loss of over 1,300 points it had incurred during intra-day trading on Friday.
A rise in tensions between Pakistan and India following Pahalgam attack kept the stock market under pressure, pushing the KSE-100 Index to an intra-day low of 113,716.60.
Indian airlines to suffer higher costs, detours in ban from Pakistan airspace
However, the bulls gained momentum in the latter hours and brought the index into the positive territory, helped by buying in the final hours.
At close, the benchmark index settled at 115,469.35, up by 449.53 points or 0.39%.
Top positive contribution to the index came from HBL, FFC, MEBL, MCB & NBP, as they cumulatively contributed +570 points to the index, brokerage house Topline Securities said in its post-market report.
On Thursday, the PSX witnessed strong selling pressure, with the KSE-100 Index losing over 2,200 points.
On week-on-week basis, the KSE-100 declined by 1.57%.
“This decline can be attributed to cross border tension with India and futures rollover week. Other development during the outgoing week included Pakistan and two foreign commercial banks reaching an understanding for a $1 billion loan at an interest rate of around 7.6%, and news that government decided to raise debt from the domestic capital market by issuing Pakistan’s first sustainable investment asset-backed Sukuk bonds for funding three clean energy projects, which need Rs52 billion more for completion,” Topline said.
Relations between Pakistan and India plunged to their lowest level in years, with New Delhi accusing Islamabad of supporting “cross-border terrorism” after gunmen carried out the worst attack on civilians in contested Muslim-majority Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir’s (IIOJK) for a quarter of a century. Pakistan rejected the allegations.
The nuclear-armed arch rivals unleashed a raft of measures against each other in response, with India keeping a critical river water-sharing treaty in abeyance and Pakistan closing its airspace to Indian airlines.
The United Nations (UN) urged India and Pakistan on Friday to show “maximum restraint” as the two countries imposed tit-for-tat diplomatic measures.
While condemning the attack IIOJK Pahalgam area, the United States said that it was not taking a position on the status of Kashmir or of Jammu.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Senate unanimously passed on Friday a resolution stating that any misadventure by India would be met with a firm, swift and decisive response.
Globally, Asian stock markets headed for a second straight week of gains on Friday and the dollar for its first weekly rise in more than a month as investors have welcomed an apparent softening of the White House stance on China.
U.S. tech giant and Google parent Alphabet also beat profit expectations and reaffirmed AI spending targets, pushing its shares up nearly 5% in after-hours trade and pulling along peers and S&P 500 futures , which rose 0.5%.
Overnight on Wall Street investors had shrugged off a mixed bag of corporate results and the S&P 500 rose 2%.
The dollar, which has taken a beating through a volatile few weeks of tariff announcements, reversals and a flight out of U.S. assets has seemed to steady around $1.1350 per euro at 143 Japanese yen , with dollar selling abating in Asia on Friday.
Volume on the all-share index decreased to 471.07 million from 506.70 million recorded in the previous close.
The value of shares rose to Rs27.31 billion from Rs24.49 billion in the previous session.
WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 22.80 million shares, followed by Power Cement with 21.96 million shares, and Sui South Gas with 21.57 million shares.
Shares of 441 companies were traded on Friday, of which 182 registered an increase, 204 recorded a fall, while 55 remained unchanged.
