Daily Times

The 100-Index of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) turned around to bearish trend on Wednesday, losing 310.21 points, a negative change of 0.32 percent, closing at 95,546.46 points as compared to 95,856.67 points on the last trading day.

A total of 1,138,411,946 shares were traded during the day as compared to 830,931,008 shares the previous trading day, whereas the price of shares stood at Rs 37.481 billion against Rs. 30.019 billion on the last trading day.

As many as 456 companies transacted their shares in the stock market, 156 of them recorded gains and 251 sustained losses, whereas the share price of 49 companies remained unchanged. The three top trading companies were K-Electric Limited with 174,389,145 shares at Rs 5.22 per share, Hascol Petrol with 63,973,243 shares at Rs 11.26 per share and Kohinoor Spinning with 62,996,737 shares at Rs.9.98 per share. Colgate Palmolive (Pakistan) Limited witnessed a maximum increase of Rs.101.90 per share price, closing at Rs 1,480.88, whereas the runner-up was Nestle Pakistan Limited with Rs 91.17 rise in its per share price to Rs 6,691.17.

Pakistan Services Limited witnessed a maximum decrease of Rs 44.72 per share closing at Rs 802.67 followed by Services Industries Limited with Rs 39.48 decline to close at Rs 1,179.99.

Separately, major European and Asian stock markets mostly gained and the dollar firmed against main rivals Wednesday following a positive lead from Wall Street, as all eyes turned to upcoming results from artificial-intelligence giant Nvidia. London was up 0.2 percent in late morning deals as a 20-percent surge in the share price of accounting-software group Sage following strong earnings and outlook helped offset news of a fresh jump to UK inflation.

Traders were keenly awaiting Wednesday’s release of earnings from US chip behemoth Nvidia, which many see as a bellwether of the tech sector and artificial-intelligence demand that have helped power Wall Street to multiple record-highs this year.

They were assessing also the prospect of an escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war, Donald Trump’s second presidency and the outlook for US interest rates.

“One of the most highly anticipated days of the earnings season, if not the most, the Nvidia earnings day, is finally here,” noted Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank.

“It’s hard to say that good results will lead to a good market reaction. Last quarter, the blowout results and solid outlook weren’t necessarily enough to boost the share price after the earnings announcement,” she added. Investors are treading carefully this week amid uncertainty after Trump’s re-election and as he picks his cabinet, with several China hawks up for key positions fanning worries of another trade war between the economic superpowers.

The tycoon has pledged to ramp up tariffs on imports, with China particularly in his sights, but observers warn that such a move — along with planned tax cuts — could relight still stubborn inflation. That has dampened hopes for several interest-rate cuts next year from the US Federal Reserve.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has burst back into the thoughts of traders as Moscow vowed to react “accordingly” after saying Kyiv had fired its first US-made long-range missile into Russian territory.

Washington this week said it had cleared Kyiv to use the US-supplied Army Tactical Missile System against military targets inside Russia — a long-standing Ukrainian request.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the attack showed Western countries wanted to “escalate” the conflict, adding that “we will be taking this as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia”.