Hit by heavy selling, PSX settles below 180,000

During the intraday trading, losses were broad-based across major sectors, including cement, commercial banks, fertiliser, oil and gas exploration, oil marketing companies and power generation. Key index constituents such as OGDC, MARI, POL, PPL, HUBCO, ARL, MCB, MEBL and UBL were trading lower.

Market sentiment was also influenced by reports that the government is considering imposing a cess on fertiliser companies to recover windfall profits, with proceeds proposed to be allocated for farmers.

The decline followed Thursday’s sharp downturn, when the KSE-100 lost 2,537.16 points, or 1.39%, to close at 180,512.65 amid uncertainty and sector-wide weakness.

Internationally, Asian markets retreated from record levels as concerns over profit margins in the technology sector weighed on investor sentiment ahead of key US inflation data.

Overnight on Wall Street, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2% after Cisco Systems reported lower-than-expected quarterly adjusted gross margins due to higher chip costs, triggering a 12% drop in its shares. The selloff extended to major technology stocks, with Apple declining 5%.

On Friday, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.6%, though it remained up 4.1% for the week. Japan’s Nikkei slipped 0.9%, while Chinese blue chips and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index declined 0.6% and 1.5%, respectively.

Futures for the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were marginally higher by 0.1%, while EURO STOXX 50 futures gained 0.2%.