The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained under sustained selling pressure, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index dropping by nearly 4,000 points in early trading on Thursday.
At 10:46am, the benchmark index was trading at 162,053.62, a decline of 3,770.25 points or 2.27%.
Selling pressure was seen across major sectors, including automobile assemblers, cement, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs, and power generation. Heavyweight stocks such as HUBCO, MARI, OGDC, POL, and PPL, were trading in negative territory.
On Wednesday, the PSX faced intense selling as weak corporate earnings, declines in key stocks, and cautious investor sentiment, driven by rising oil prices and geopolitical tensions, dragged the market down.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index dropped sharply by 2,588.35 points, or 1.54%, to settle at 165,823.88.
Meanwhile, oil prices moved higher on Thursday following reports that the United States is considering possible military action against Iran amid stalled negotiations to end the conflict, raising fears of further disruptions to already constrained Middle Eastern oil supplies.
Brent crude for June delivery climbed $5.27, or 4.5%, to reach $123.30 per barrel by 0347 GMT, after having surged 6.1% in the previous session.
