Sudden political uncertainty took a toll on investor sentiment at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Friday, with the benchmark KSE-100 losing nearly 900 points during the second half of trading. The index recovered some losses before the session-end, but remained in the red.
A range bound session was witnessed during the first-half of the trading session, but news of the Senate approving a resolution seeking delay in the general elections sent stocks plummeting.
Resuming after the mid-session break, the index – between around 2:40pm and 2:50pm – went from a positive 290 points into the negative territory at nearly 900 points.
However, the market recovered some losses on late-session buying, encouraged by most political parties as well as the caretaker government showing dismay over the resolution, assuring commitment to timely elections.
At close, the KSE-100 settled at 64,514.90, down by 124.26 points or 0.19%.
The development comes after the Upper House of Parliament on Friday approved a resolution seeking a delay in the general elections by a majority vote.
The resolution was tabled by Senator Dilawar Khan who cited cold weather and security issues as reasons behind seeking the delay.
The development, which comes just a little over a month before the general elections scheduled for February 8, raised concerns of growing political instability in the South Asian country, which remains engulfed in a myriad of challenges.
Meanwhile, the rupee registered gains for the third consecutive session against the US dollar, appreciating 0.1% in the inter-bank market on Friday. As per the State Bank of Pakistan, the local unit settled at 281.4 after an increase of Re0.27 against the greenback.
Volume on the all-share index increased to 950 million from 550 million a session before.
The value of shares rose to Rs19.3 billion from Rs15.4 billion in the previous session.
K-Electric Ltd was the volume leader with 481.12 million shares, followed by WorldCall Telecom with 33.38 million shares, and B.O.Punjab at 28.42 million shares.
Shares of 362 companies were traded on Friday, of which 161 registered an increase, 187 recorded a fall, while 14 remained unchanged.