PSX crashes as KSE 100 index loses over 2000 points

KARACHI: After an entire day of shutdown due to a public holiday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Tuesday plummeted by over 2000 points due to the rising spread of coronavirus and its adverse economic effects on the country.

The Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), which regulates the stock market, issued directives that the stock market would remain open despite calls from brokers and investors to suspend it in view of the partial lockdown in various parts of the country.

Trading resumed on Tuesday but was halted moment later after the stock market was in a free fall raising fear of a situation similar to the 2008 financial crisis.

The benchmark KSE 100 index at the stock market dropped by 2102.58 points in intra-day trading and closed at 28,584.83 points. This shows a massive decline of 6.86 percent within a single day of trading. The total volume of shares dropped to 80.1 million valued at Rs 2.253 billion only.

The lower bench KSE 30 index witnessed a staggering decline of 1010.12 points and closed at 12,526.91 points. This marks a downfall of 7.42 percent in intra-day trading. The total volume of scripts was only 21.75 million as investors failed away from the stock market.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) has activated the disaster recovery (DR) system to ensure the market remains operational during the lockdown. The trading terminals allow stockbrokers to work from home and were implemented amid rising demand to completely shut down the market.

The apex regulator also listed certain relaxations for capital market stakeholders which include reducing the market halt threshold for the KSE 30 index to three percent from current five percent.

The market halt was extended till 90 minutes from current 45 and a delayed start of market from 10:30 instead of 9:30 on Tuesday and circuit breakers to reduce to 5pc from existing 7.5 percent.