Selling pressure at bourse, KSE-100 sheds over 650 points

Heavy selling pressure was observed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), with the benchmark KSE-100 losing over 650 points during the opening hours of trading on Monday.
At 10:20am, the benchmark index was hovering at 112,596.14, a decrease of 655.52 points or 0.58%.
Selling was witnessed across key sectors including automobile assemblers, cement, chemical, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs and refinery. Index-heavy stocks including OGDC, PPL, MARI, PSO, SSGC and WAFI traded in the red.
During the previous week, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained in the green zone driven by improved local liquidity and positive investor sentiment.
The benchmark KSE-100 index gained 451 points, or 0.4%, on a week-on-week basis, closing at 113,251.67 points compared to 112,801 points in the previous week.
Globally, Asian share markets dithered on Monday as the threat of imminent tariffs lurked in the background, while bitcoin surged on news it would be included in a new US strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies.
US President Donald Trump on social media announced five digital assets he expected to include in a new reserve, including bitcoin, ether, XRP, Solana and Cardano.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, shot up more than 11% to $94,110, while ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, climbed 14% to $2,528.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was flat, though Japan’s Nikkei rose 1.1%, helped by a softer yen.
S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures were both up 0.1%, having staged a late rally on Friday after a week of heavy losses.
Geopolitical uncertainty lingered as European leaders agreed to draw up a Ukraine peace plan to take to the United States, following President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s clash with Trump in the Oval Office.
This is an intra-day update