After a day of steep losses, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) saw a strong rebound on Wednesday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index surging by more than 800 points during the early trading session.
At 9:35 AM, the benchmark index was up by 836.06 points, or 0.53%, reaching 158,706.56 points.
Investor sentiment turned positive across major sectors, including automobile assemblers, cement, commercial banks, fertilizers, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs, power generation, and refineries. Key stocks such as MEBL, FFC, PPL, OGDC, Mari Petroleum, Hubco, NBP, and UBL all traded in the green zone.
According to the Economic Affairs Division, Pakistan has paid a total of 1.90 billion Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) — equivalent to USD 2.69 billion — in interest payments under various IMF programs, including additional charges of 401.24 million SDRs from 2008 to June 2025.
The rebound follows Tuesday’s sharp downturn, when the KSE-100 Index plunged by 3,667.90 points, or 2.27%, closing at 157,870.50 points amid political and security uncertainty, which triggered widespread selling pressure.
On the global front, Asian markets moved cautiously higher in early Wednesday trading as the U.S. Congress appeared poised to end the federal government shutdown. Traders were looking for direction amid limited government data updates during the ongoing closure — now the longest shutdown in U.S. history.
The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index (excluding Japan) inched up 0.1%, while Australian shares rose 0.2% and Japan’s Topix gained 0.6% as investors reacted positively to expectations of restored U.S. government funding.
