Pakistan Stock Exchange sheds almost 800 points in intraday trading

KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) showed downward trend on Wednesday, with its benchmark KSE-100 Index lost almost 800 points in intraday trading, marking a loss of 2%.

According to details, the current downward trend is mainly due to the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) resolution to elevate key lending rate by 150 basis points (bps) to 10% as well, in addition to the fall in the value of the Pakistani rupee previous Friday.

Also, the benchmark index has till now shed more than 3,000 points under the PTI government, previously the benchmark KSE-100 Index was at 42,447 points in the early August.

The Pakistani rupee shows continuous decline in the previous months, the rupee closed at 139.06 to the dollar in the interbank market on 30th November 2018, with a depreciation of almost 3.8% in its value.

Furthermore, on Nov 30, the SBP increased its key policy rate by 150 basis points to control inflation, mainly due to a weak rupee value which contributes in the factor.

https://arynews.tv/en/sbp-raises-policy-rate-by-150-stability/

It is also observed that such move by SBP is one of the initiative of fulfilling a few pre-conditions of a fresh IMF loan, though Finance Minister Asad Umar has said he is in no hurry to get it.