After initial profit-taking, buying returned to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining over 600 points during the opening minutes of trading on Wednesday.
At 10:35am, the benchmark index was hovering at 166,827.98, a decrease of 654.24 points or 0.39%.
Buying interest was observed in key sectors, including automobile assemblers, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs and power generation. Index-heavy stocks, including HUBCO, ARL, PSO, SNGPL, OGDC, POL and PPL, traded in the green.
In a key development, the World Bank revised Pakistan’s GDP growth rate projection downward by 0.5% to 2.6% for the current fiscal year 2025-26 against the earlier projection of 3.1% (June 2025). The bank said that ongoing catastrophic floods have dampened the forecast and also warned of a rise in inflation due to disruption in the food supply chain.
On Tuesday, PSX closed in the red as selling pressure dominated the session, attributed to heavy profit-taking by local institutions, which overshadowed early gains. The benchmark KSE-100 Index plunged by 1,578.66 points, or 0.94%, to finish at 166,173.75 points.
Internationally, Asian stocks tracked Wall Street lower on Wednesday as investors grappled with the fallout from political drama in France and Japan, while a prolonged US government shutdown catapulted gold spot prices to a record $4,000 per ounce level.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1%, inching away from the 4-1/2 year high it hit on Tuesday. The Chinese and South Korea markets were closed for a long holiday.
Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.35%, just shy of the record peak touched in the previous session.
All eyes are on the Japanese markets after a surprise victory over the weekend for fiscal dove Takaichi spurred worries over the fiscal and monetary policy outlook, with traders swiftly cutting their bets on another hike this year.
Investors have had to rely on secondary, independently produced data, along with remarks from monetary policymakers, to gauge the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will implement its second rate cut of the year at this month’s policy meeting.
Traders are pricing in 45 basis points of easing this year.
This is an intra-day update
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