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Pakistan likely to exit FATF ‘grey list’ this week

Pakistan is expected to finally exit the ‘increased monitoring list’ — commonly known as grey list — of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Oct 21, after languishing in the infamous category for almost 52 months. “The first FATF Plenary under the two-year Singapore Presidency of T. Raja Kumar will take place on October 20-21, 2022,” said the Paris-based global watchdog on dirty money. Del

Stocks manage modest gains in range-bound trading

The stock market went through anot­her range-bound session on Thursday even though the benchmark opened and closed in the green zone. Arif Habib Ltd said investors’ participation remained low, which caused the trading volume to decline sharply. The index fluctuated in both directions, but ended up in the green as the IT sector remained in the limelight. Analyst Ahsan Mehanti noted that selec

Car sales crash amid escalating prices

Auto sales, including those reported by companies that aren’t members of the Pakistan Automotive Manufac­turers Association, declined in September by seven per cent on a month-on-month basis to about 13,000 units. According to data compiled by Topline Securities, auto sales dropped 51pc on an annual basis amid escalating prices, expensive auto financing and low purchasing power of consumers. Th

Oil prices jittery as market wary of demand risks

Oil prices struggled to find their footing in Asian trade on Thursday after easing in the previous session on the back of a weakening global demand outlook. Brent crude futures dropped seven cents, or 0.1 per cent, to $92.38 a barrel by 0310 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate crude was down 21 cents at $87.06 a barrel, or 0.2pc. Both Opec and the US Energy Department have cut their demand outlo

S. Arabia says Opec+ oil cut ‘purely economic’ as IEA warns move could tip world into recession

Saudi Arabia rejected as “not based on facts” criticism of an Opec+ decision last week to cut its oil production target despite United States objections and said Washington’s request to delay the cut by a month would have had negative economic consequences. The Opec+ decision was adopted through consensus, took into account the balance of supply and demand and was aimed at curbing market volati