Selling pressure was witnessed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) as the benchmark KSE-100 Index lost 1,141 points during the trading session on Monday.
The KSE-100 started the session with some positivity, hitting an intra-day high of 78,330.10.
However, selling pressure helped the bears hold ground and pushed the index into the negative territory.
At close, the benchmark index settled at 77,084.49, down by 1,141.50 points or 1.46%.
“The significant drop was primarily due to investor skepticism as global stock markets tumbled,” brokerage house Ismail Iqbal Securities said in its post-market report.
Topline Securities said the downturn was largely influenced by declines in the power, E&P, IT and banking sectors, with key contributors such as HUBC, HBL, POL, SYS, and BAHL accounting for a combined 484-point drop.
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, 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.
That has led to speculation the economy could be in for a hard landing and tip into recession.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee registered a marginal decline against the US dollar, depreciating 0.05% in the inter-bank market on Monday. At close, the currency settled at 278.63, a loss of Re0.13, against the greenback.
Volume on the all-share index increased to 501.2 million from 443.48 million a session ago.
The value of shares rose to Rs21.06 billion from Rs20.5 billion in the previous session.
Kohinoor Spinning was the volume leader with 86.04 million shares, followed by Yousuf Weaving with 32.8 million shares, and WorldCall Telecom with 19.64 million shares.
Shares of 442 companies were traded on Monday, of which 129 registered an increase, 261 recorded a fall, while 52 remained unchanged.
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