PSX: Selling continues, KSE-100 sheds over 1% on Middle East conflict, oil surge

Business Recorder reported that the benchmark KSE-100 index dropped 1.01 per cent, or 1,736.97 points, to hover at 170,206.62 at 2:15pm on Thursday as selling continued on the Pakistan Stock Exchange. The slide came as Iran and the United States carried out their heaviest strikes on commercial vessels since their conflict, now about six months old, started. Crude prices pushed past $100 a barrel in the wake of the attacks.

Sana Tawfik, Head of Research at Arif Habib Limited, told Business Recorder that fresh friction over the past day or two involving the US and Iran, together with costlier crude, had fuelled the selling. She said the State Bank of Pakistan is expected to keep its policy stance unchanged at Monday's announcement, although recent rises in domestic oil prices have drawn more attention to that decision.

Losses spread across automobile assemblers, cement makers, commercial banks, fertiliser producers, upstream energy firms and oil marketing companies. Heavyweights PSO, MARI, OGDC, PPL, FFC, MCB, MEBL and NBP were all trading in negative territory. Internationally, Asian equities slipped and Brent crude was quoted at $101.4 a barrel in early trading.