KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) started with bearish trend on Monday amid simmering geopolitical tensions between Pakistan and India following Pahalgam attack.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index was hovering at 113,223.46 after losing nearly 900 points during the opening hours of trading in the PSX.
Massive selling pressure was observed across key sectors including power generation, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs, automobile assemblers and commercial banks.
Besides, Key stocks including HUBCO, PSO, SNGPL, MARI, OGDC, PPL, MEBL, NBP and UBL traded in the red due to lack of clarity in the market.
The ongoing decline is said to be linked with India’s possible plans of launching airstrikes after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a significant 40-minute meeting with Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari a day ago.
Other than that, an important factor behind investors’ reluctance is the meeting of Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) today which will decide the policy rate.
It must be remembered that the stocks’ journey remained volatile during the last week amid escalating geopolitical tension between Pakistan and India with the benchmark KSE-100 Index closing at 114,114 points.
