PSX records partial recovery after largest single-day drop

The Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed a historic downturn as the benchmark index of the exchange, the KSE-100, recorded its single largest fall in intraday trading history after falling by a staggering 8,400 points during trading hours.

The KSE-100 index plummeted to an intraday low of 110,103.97 points at approximately 1:15 PM, triggering widespread concern across trading floors. The steep drop was driven by aggressive sell-offs largely because of China's response to the tariffs that the US levied on it by slapping substantial tariffs of its own through “retaliatory levies” on all goods imported from the US.

This move resulted in the KSE-100 index closing at a much lower level of 114,909.48 points. For context, the index had closed at 118,791.66 points the day before. As today’s trading session came to a close, the index had suffered a staggering decline of 3,882.18 points, marking a sharp 3.27 percent drop in a single day.

The market continued its downward trajectory till around 1:30 PM, after which it attempted a major rally but failed to make a comeback that could allow it to claw out of the red.

All major indices on the PSX closed in the red, with the broader All-share index (ALLSHR) also facing a significant contraction. Unlike the KSE-100, which tracks the top 100 performing companies, the ALLSHR index reflects the overall performance of all publicly listed companies and also showed a 3.31 percent decline.

Despite previous signs of recovery in the PSX, the current fall has wiped out significant gains made over the past year. Trading data revealed a marked increase in panic selling in all sectors as the selloff indiscriminately ravaged all areas of the economy listed on the PSX.

Multiple companies saw their share prices plunge sharply, with First IBL Modaraba (FIBLM) experiencing the largest drop of the day – falling by 15.67 percent during intraday trading.

Overall, the volume of regular stock trading stood at 710,788,421 shares, translating into a total value of approximately 43 billion rupees – a reflection of the heightened activity driven by uncertainty and sell-offs.