The Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 Index closed the trading session down by 479 points on Friday, as late-session selling erased the gains the index had made in the first half of the day.
The KSE-100 started the session positive, hitting an intra-day high of 113,482.13, a gain of more than 900 points.
However, the bears managed to spur selling in the second half, which erased all the intra-day gains and pushed the index to an intra-day low of 111,861.56.
At close, the benchmark index settled at 112,085.30, down by 478.78 points or 0.43%.
Earlier, buying was seen in key sectors, including commercial banking, fertiliser, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs and refineries. Index-heavy stocks including NRL, HUBCO, SNGPL, SSGC, HBL, JSBL, MEBL and NBP traded in the green.
“We think the market will be watchful of any news flow around the upcoming International Monetary Fund (IMF) review in March, which remains a key milestone. If the review sails smoothly, the market should rally further,” said Intermarket Securities in a note.
On Thursday, the PSX witnessed range-bound trading for the second consecutive session. The KSE-100 closed the day lower by 361 points at 112,564.08.
Internationally, Asian markets mostly rose Friday in line with a rally on Wall Street as traders were buoyed by news that Donald Trump’s latest, sweeping reciprocal tariffs would not likely be implemented until April, giving time for negotiations.
The president has unveiled a range of hardball measures to bring an end to what he says is years of countries taking advantage of the United States, fuelling trade war fears and leading to warnings of another inflation spike.
However, investor sentiment has largely held up on hopes that many of the tariffs can be rowed back with negotiations, while Trump’s announcement of plans to hold Ukraine peace talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin has added some optimism.
The move came days after Trump signed executive orders imposing new 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium, due to come into effect on March 12.
Observers said there appeared to be a feeling on trading floors that the measures were being used as a negotiating tactic by the White House.
Asian markets enjoyed a broadly positive end to the week.
Hong Kong gained more than 1%, with Sydney, Seoul, Wellington and Manila following suit.
Tokyo dropped despite a surge in Sony following a healthy earnings report as well as rallies in Nissan and Honda a day after they confirmed the scrapping of merger talks.
Shanghai, Singapore and Taipei also fell.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee registered marginal improvement against the US dollar, appreciating 0.02% in the inter-bank market on Friday. At close, the rupee settled at 279.21, a gain of Re0.05 against the greenback.
Volume on the all-share index decreased to 457.05 million from 596.74 million recorded in the previous close.
The value of shares declined to Rs23.22 billion from Rs30.96 billion in the previous session.
B.O.Punjab was the volume leader with 70.05 million shares, followed by Sui South Gas with 32.78 million shares, and Lotte Chemical with 23.44 million shares.
Shares of 432 companies were traded on Friday, of which 135 registered an increase, 237 recorded a fall, while 60 remained unchanged.
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