News

Equities see volatile start as KSE-100 swings amid Middle East tensions

A volatile trading was observed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), with the benchmark KSE-100 Index swinging both ways during trading on Wednesday amid escalating tensions in the Middle East. At 12:35pm, the benchmark index was hovering at 170,284.25, down by 46.31 points or 0.03%. A mixed trading pattern was observed in key sectors, including automobile assemblers, cement, commercial ban

Oil rises nearly 1% as US launches new strikes against Iran, supply tightens

Oil prices climbed about 1% on Wednesday, moving away from a seven-week low touched in the previous session, after the US military launched new strikes against Iran and as market data showed another large draw in US crude stocks. The US military’s strikes on Iranian targets followed after President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to respond to the downing of a US Apache attack helicopter overnigh

Pakistan’s IT sector: a billion dollars, and still off the map

Sometime this year, Pakistan’s freelancers will earn their first billion dollars. In the ten months to April they brought home around $959 million, nearly half again as much as the year before, while total IT exports reached $3.39 billion in the first nine months of this fiscal year, according to the State Bank and Pakistan Software Export Board figures. There are now more than 2.37 million reg

$4.5bn greenfield refinery project planned in Balochistan

SPEC Refinery Pvt Ltd is advancing plans for Pakistan’s first deep-conversion greenfield refinery at Hub, Balochistan, with an estimated investment of $4.5 billion, a move expected to strengthen energy security and spur industrial development in the country. The development was disclosed during a meeting between Federal Minister for Commerce Jam Kamal Khan and a delegation of SPEC Refinery Pvt

Pakistan registers $4.3bn in remittances for May 2026

The inflow of overseas workers’ remittances into Pakistan stood at $4.251 billion in May 2026, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) data showed on Wednesday. In terms of growth, remittances increased by 20.2% on a month-on-month basis and 15.4% on a year-on-year basis. Cumulatively, workers’ remittances increased by 9.2% to $38.1 billion during Jul-May FY26, compared to $34.9 billion received du