PSX falls 1,734 points on geopolitics tension

The Express Tribune reported that the Pakistan Stock Exchange ended Thursday's trading lower, with the KSE-100 dropping 1,733.6 points, a decline of 1.01%, to 170,499. The All-Share Index lost 1.08% to 103,103 on volume of 315 million shares. The index had opened firmer and reached an intraday peak of 172,491, but selling picked up in the second half and it bottomed at 170,418.

Lenders, cement makers, exploration firms, power producers and refiners drove most of the losses, with UBL the heaviest drag at roughly 200 points. LUCK, MARI, HUBC and NBP followed among the larger decliners. Brent crude traded near $107 per barrel, keeping geopolitical and macroeconomic worries high.

The session erased most of Wednesday's 830-point gain, which had been underpinned by optimism over US-Iran negotiations and the IMF mission's arrival. Separately, NRL, ATRL and CNERGY inked upgrade deals with Inter State Gas Systems (ISGS) under a revised brownfield refinery framework. The broader modernisation effort, worth roughly $6billion, seeks cleaner Euro-V fuels and less reliance on imports. Even so, refinery shares fell with the rest of the market.