Bloodbath witnessed at PSX in intraday trade after global market crash – Business

Shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange declined by 2,900 points in intraday trade on Monday after Asian equities collapsed on a black Monday for markets in the wake of China hammering the United States with its own hefty tariffs, ramping up a trade war many fear could spark a recession.

The benchmark KSE-100 index was down by 2915.85 points, or 2.45 per cent, to stand at 115,875.81 from the last close of 118,791.66 at 10am.

Mohammed Sohail, chief executive of Topline Securities, attributed the decline to the global market crash.

Trading floors were overcome by a wave of selling as investors fled to the hills on the worst day for equities since the pandemic, with Hong Kong shedding 10pc, Tokyo briefly diving 8pc and Taipei more than 9pc.

Futures for Wall Street’s markets were also taking another drubbing, while concerns about the impact on demand also saw commodities slump.

Donald Trump sparked a market meltdown last week when he unveiled sweeping tariffs against US trading partners for what he says was years of being ripped off and claimed that governments were lining up to cut deals with Washington.

But after Asian markets closed on Friday, China said it would impose retaliatory levies of 34pc on all US goods from April 10.

It also imposed export controls on seven rare earth elements, including gadolinium — commonly used in MRIs — and yttrium, utilised in consumer electronics.

Hopes that the US president would rethink his policy in light of the turmoil were dashed Sunday when he said he would not make a deal with other countries unless trade deficits were solved.

He denied that he was intentionally engineering a selloff and insisted he could not foresee market reactions.

“Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” he said of the ructions that have wiped trillions of dollars off company valuations.