Pakistan Stock Exchange on Monday witnessed a bearish trend as the benchmark KSE-100 index lost 1061.98 points in the first hour of trading.
According to the PSX, the KSE-100 Index opened at 43,486.46 points as the day’s trading began and immediately plummeted by 806.95 points. At early morning, the index had fallen by over 1,000 points at 42,424.48, down by 2.44 per cent.
The plunge comes a day after Finance Minister Miftah Ismail publicized that the government would not hike petrol prices “for now“. By doing so, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government is going back on a crucial prerequisite set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to resume its loan program.
Ismail said he would speak to the IMF, adding that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif “was not in favor of putting this burden of increased oil prices on the people”.
In another development, the US Dollar hit another high against the rupee on Monday, soaring past Rs194 in the interbank market.
According to the Forex Association of Pakistan (FAP), the greenback increased by Rs1.30 from Friday’s close to hit Rs194.30 close to known in the interbank trade.
This comes after a week of the rupee consistently hitting new lows, majorly because of the country’s rising import bill.
Last week’s data from the FAP indicated that the dollar had climbed to record highs against the rupee for five successive days. The greenback reached a high of Rs188.66 in the interbank market last Tuesday, then surged to Rs190.90 on Wednesday, and rose past Rs192 on Thursday. It reached Rs193.10 on Friday.
