Selling pressure continued at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) as fighting intensified between the world’s largest crude exporter and Yemen-based Houthis, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding over 1,300 points during the first half of trading on Friday.
At 12pm, the benchmark index hovered at 162,589.30, down 1,335.01 points or 0.81%.
“Selling pressure stems from two factors: weakness in global markets amid higher oil prices, and cautious sentiment ahead of the monetary policy decision on Monday amid expectations of a rate hike,” Sana Tawfik, Head of Research at Arif Habib Limited, told Business Recorder.
Key sectors saw selling, including automobile assemblers, cement, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs, power generation, and refineries. Index-heavy stocks, including ARL, HUBCO, MARI, PPL, POL, MCB, MEBL, NBP and UBL, traded in the red.
On Thursday, PSX again slipped as persistent geopolitical uncertainty, rising international oil prices and the absence of positive triggers weighed on investor sentiment, triggering broad-based selling across major sectors. The benchmark KSE-100 Index declined by 2,006.67 points, or 1.21%, to close at 163,924.32 points.
Internationally, Asian shares fell on Friday as concerns over the enormous funding needs of AI hammered tech and led to the biggest daily rally in Treasuries in more than three years, with investors fleeing to sovereign bonds and safe-haven currencies.
Markets also sharply pared back expectations of further policy tightening from the Federal Reserve, stripping out almost a full quarter-point rate hike for next year amid concerns a bursting AI bubble could derail the data-centre investment boom and hobble the US economy.
A December rate rise is no longer fully priced, with the implied probability falling to 85%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares excluding Japan fell 0.3% on Friday, bringing its weekly loss to 2.7% and marking a fourth straight week in the red. Japan’s Nikkei dropped 1.3% and was down a whopping 5% for the week.
South Korea’s KOSPI skidded 1.7%, on course for a 4.3% weekly decline, with memory chipmaker SK Hynix down 2.5% on the day. Taiwan’s stock market was closed due to a typhoon.
An index of mainland Chinese blue chips lost 1.1% on Friday to hit the lowest level since July 2025.
The index was down about 20% from its peak in late June.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged up 0.1% after dropping 3% on Thursday.
This is an intraday update