Selling returned to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) after a positive start, as the KSE-100 Index went into the negative territory to lose over 1,400 points during trading on Monday.
The KSE-100 opened the session positive, hitting an intra-day high of 116,658.95 during the initial hours.
However, selling pressure in the latter hours pushed the index to an intra-day low of 113,867.81.
At close, the benchmark index settled at 114,063.90, down by 1,405.45 points or 1.22%.
“Today’s trading session witnessed a classic tug-of-war between bulls and bears. The index opened on a positive note, gaining strong momentum in the early hours to register an intraday high of 1,189 points. However, the optimism proved short-lived, as intensified selling pressure later in the session caused the index to reverse sharply, touching an intraday low of 1,601 points,” brokerage house Topline Securities said in its post-market report.
“The prevailing negative sentiment was largely driven by escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, which heightened investor concerns and weighed heavily on overall market confidence,” it added.
On the positive side, SYS, LUCK, MEBL, and HBL collectively contributed 489 points to the index. Conversely, the bulk of the negative impact came from ENGROH, UBL, MARI, EFERT, and PSO, which together shaved off 907 points from the benchmark, Topline said.
On Friday, the benchmark index had closed at 115,469.35.
A rise in tensions between Pakistan and India following Pahalgam attack kept the stock market under pressure as the KSE-100 declined by 1.57% last week.
“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 in a report last week.
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.
Asian share markets and the dollar made a cautious start on Monday as confusion over US trade policy showed little sign of easing, in a week packed with major economic data and mega-tech earnings.
While US President Donald Trump has claimed progress is being made on trade with China, and many other countries, actual evidence is lacking. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent failed on Sunday to back Trump’s assertion that tariff talks with China were under way.
“The uncertainty itself is at least as damaging as the tariffs themselves, hurting the USfsusp economy at least as much as the rest of the world,” said Christian Keller, head of economics research at Barclays.
“Even if the ongoing earnings season still shows robust numbers, many companies will likely prepare to hunker down until visibility improves,” he warned. “This makes a recession increasingly likely.”
Early action in markets was light, with MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edging up 0.1%. Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.9%, while South Korea firmed 0.2%.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee posted marginal decline against the US dollar, depreciating by 0.03% during trading in the inter-bank market on Monday. At close, the local currency settled at 281.07, down by Re0.10 against the previous day close.
Volume on the all-share index decreased to 423.94 million from 471.07 million recorded in the previous close.
The value of shares declined to Rs26.46 billion from Rs27.31 billion in the previous session.
B.O.Punjab was the volume leader with 23.71 million shares, followed by Power Cement with 21.58 million shares, and WorldCall Telecom with 18.31 million shares.
Shares of 449 companies were traded on Monday, of which 93 registered an increase, 313 recorded a fall, while 43 remained unchanged.
