Selling pressure was witnessed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) as the benchmark KSE-100 Index lost over 1,200 points during the trading session on Monday.
At 2:50pm, the benchmark index was hovering at 77,015.39, a decrease of 1,210.59 points or 1.55%.
Across-the-board selling was witnessed in key sectors including automobile assemblers, cement, chemical, commercial banks, OMCs and refinery.
Index-heavy stocks including PSO, SHEL, HBL, MCB, MEBL and NBP traded in red.
Experts said investors were stoked by fears of recession in the US economy.
During the previous week, the PSX remained highly volatile due to selling pressure on investor concerns over political noise in the country.
The benchmark KSE-100 index, after moving in both directions, closed in positive at 78,225.98 points, slightly up by 196.47 points on week-on-week basis.
During the week, Fitch raised Pakistan’s long-term foreign currency issuer default rating (IDR) to ‘CCC+’ from ‘CCC’ earlier while S&P maintained Pakistan’s rating at ‘CCC+’ for long-term sovereign credit rating and ‘C’ short-term rating.
Globally, Tokyo led a collapse across Asian equities Monday, while the yen hit a six-month high after weak US jobs data fanned fears of a recession in the world’s top economy and boosted bets on several Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.
Trading boards showed a sea of red following another hefty day of losses on Wall Street, where heavyweight tech firms including Amazon and Microsoft took the brunt owing to worries an AI-fuelled rally this year may have been overdone.
A much-anticipated report Friday showed the US economy added just 114,000 jobs last month, well down from June and far fewer than expected, while the jobless rate rose to the highest level since October 2021.
The news came a day after lacklustre factory data that stoked concerns that Fed officials may have held borrowing costs at more than two-decade highs too long.
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