Stocks suffer fourth straight loss

On the eve of the Kashmir Day holiday, the stock market remained under institutional selling pressure amid a lack of positive triggers and uncertainty on the economic front, dragging the benchmark KSE 100 index below 112,000, extending the losing streak to a fourth consecutive session on Tuesday. Ali Najib, Head of Sales at Insight Securities, said bulls came with a bang globally after Mr Trump’s tariff pause decision on Mexico and Canada. Worldwide equity markets welcomed it, and the PSX behaved similarly, commencing the day on a jubilant note. Strong investor sentiment was observed as across-the-board buying helped the benchmark index to gain 904 points, pushing the KSE100 index to an intraday high of 113,649. However, profit-taking by nervous investors turned this joy into a shortlived phenomenon and compelled the index to shed earlier gains. Ultimately, the index settled at 111,935, losing 810 points or 0.72pc day-on-day. Topline Securities Ltd attributed this decline to local institutional selling. The drop was primarily driven by Engro Holdings, Millat Tractors Ltd, Fauji Fertiliser, Bank Al-Habib AHL, and Pakistan Petroleum, which wiped out 430 points from the index.