The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Wednesday witnessed yet another bloodbath this year \u2014 tumbling by as many as 6,500 points in intraday trade \u2014 as investors\u2019 fears of a military action by India against Pakistan came true last night.<\/p>\n
The Pakistani military brought down five Indian jets in retaliation for late-night strikes launched by its neighbouring country at six sites in Punjab and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.<\/p>\n
The benchmark KSE-100 index decreased by 6,560.82 points, or 5.78 per cent, to stand at 107,007.68 from the last close of 113,568.50 when the market opened at 9:30am.<\/p>\n
Due to the massive dip, the market was immediately suspended briefly.<\/p>\n
This marked the second-largest intra-day plunge (points-wise), ranking next to the nearly 8,700-point loss that followed the United States\u2019 tariff announcement last month.<\/p>\n
However, the market started recovering slightly, reaching 112,457.37 points at around 10:34am, before declining to 111,171.92 points at 12pm \u2014 nearly 2,400 points below yesterday\u2019s close.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe market opened under pressure today following Indian strikes on unarmed civilians in Pakistan,\u201d said Yousuf M. Farooq, research director at Chase Securities.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome selling has been observed, though volumes remain low as investors assess the evolving situation,\u201d Farooq said, adding that recovery was expected once tensions begin to de-escalate.<\/p>\n
Shahbaz Ashraf, chief investment officer at Frim Ventures, also attributed the sell-off to \u201cheightened geopolitical tensions following reports of Indian strikes on multiple Pakistani locations\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe flare-up has rattled investor sentiment, with fears of further escalation weighing on the market,\u201d he said. However, Shahbaz added, analysts remained \u201ccautiously optimistic, hoping the conflict will remain short-lived with likely mediation from global powers\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cImportantly, with macroeconomic indicators showing signs of recovery, market watchers believe this correction could be temporary. Many view the pullback as a potential buying opportunity, especially for long-term investors looking to accumulate quality stocks at lower valuations,\u201d he noted, explaining the gains witnessed later.<\/p>\n
Samiullah Tariq, head of research at Pak Kuwait Investment Company Ltd, said the impact of today\u2019s selling pressure would be short-term and the market would \u201crecover once this ends\u201d.<\/p>\n
Awais Ashraf, research director at AKD Securities, also observed that the PSX was \u201cfeeling the impact\u201d of last night\u2019s developments.<\/p>\n
Echoing Shahbaz\u2019s opinion, Awais said the plunge \u201cmay present a buying opportunity, as we do not expect the situation to escalate further\u201d.<\/p>\n
In the past few days, panicky investors have continued to reduce their holdings as Pakistan had expressed a heightened possibility of a military action by India in the wake of the latter\u2019s allegations regarding a deadly attack in occupied Kashmir.<\/p>\n
The April 22 attack in Pahalgam killed 26 people, mostly tourists, in one of the deadliest assaults since 2000. India, without investigation or evidence, implied \u201ccross-border linkages\u201d of the att\u00ada\u00ad\u00ad\u00adc\u00adkers. Pakistan has firmly rejected the claim and called for a neutral probe.<\/p>\n
International rating agency Moody\u2019s has warned that sustained India-Pakistan tensions could negatively affect Pakistan\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Wednesday witnessed yet another bloodbath this year \u2014 tumbling by as many as 6,500 points in intraday trade \u2014 as investors\u2019 fears of a military action by India against Pakistan came true last night. The Pakistani military brought down five Indian jets in retaliation for late-night strikes launched by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8946,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8944\/revisions\/8946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}