The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed a volatile session on Tuesday, as its benchmark KSE-100 Index swayed in both directions before closing the day lower by over 800 points.
The market kicked off trading on a positive note, pushing the KSE-100 to an intra-day high of 116,424.85.
However, selling pressure was observed in the later part of the trading session, which erased all the intra-day gains, dragging the index to an intra-day low of 114,783.71.
At close, the benchmark index settled at 115,042.25, a decrease of 802.56 points or 0.69%.
“We think that the market will continue to gain momentum hereon and would be up trending,” said Intermarket Securities in a note on Tuesday.
“However, it would be led by flows mostly. Hence we don’t see a big rally given the lack of triggers,” it added.
The brokerage house was of the view that the upcoming Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting on January 27 could be a positive trigger if the central bank delivers a larger than 100 basis points rate cut.
Another brokerage house Topline Securities said the primary drivers behind the Tuesday’s negative movement included MARI, HUBC, OGDC, LUCK, and PSO, which collectively contributed to a loss of 543 points.
On Monday, PSX also closed on a positive note on the back of fresh buying, mainly by local investors coupled with institutional support. The benchmark KSE-100 Index increased by 572.73 points or 0.5% and closed at 115,844.82 points.
Internationally, global shares and US Treasuries were volatile on Tuesday, reversing a brief relief rally from early in the session in the first few hours of Donald Trump’s new presidency after he announced plans for trade tariffs on neighbouring countries.
US markets were closed for a holiday on Monday, so the first responses to Trump’s inauguration were felt during Asian trade on Tuesday.
Trump said that his administration is mulling imposing 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada as soon as Feb. 1 – a move which doused investors’ hopes of a delay after they had been cheering the brief mention of tariffs in his inauguration speech.
Trump’s plans for hefty import tariffs and tax cuts are a key area of focus for financial markets on the view that such policies will stoke inflation and run the US economy red hot again, which would boost the dollar and hurt bonds.
US stock futures swiftly reacted to the latest developments by reversing their gains from earlier in the session, with Nasdaq futures sliding 0.4% while S&P 500 futures fell 0.25%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ticked up 0.2%.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee saw a marginal decline against the US dollar, depreciating 0.06% in the inter-bank market on Tuesday. At close, the currency settled at 278.82 for a loss of Re0.17 against the greenback.
Volume on the all-share index increased to 767.27 million from 675.05 million on Monday.
However, the value of shares declined to Rs31.83 billion from Rs37.53 billion in the previous session.
Cnergyico PK was the volume leader with 114.03 million shares, followed by Bank Makramah with 69.48 million shares, and WorldCall Telecom with 64.23 million shares.
Shares of 450 companies were traded on Tuesday, of which 135 registered an increase, 266 recorded a fall, while 49 remained unchanged.
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