karachi
\nThe bourse came under pressure on Thursday as renewed fears over a Red Sea blockade and a persistent rise in global oil prices dampened investor sentiment.
\nThe Pakistan Stock Exchange\u2019s benchmark KSE-100 Index settled at 171,739.44, down 2,690.48 points, or 1.54%.
\nThe index had earlier risen to an intraday high of 175,237.59, up 807.67 points, or 0.46%, from the previous close, before reversing course and falling as much as 2,774.83 points, or 1.59%, touching an intraday low of 171,655.09 during the session.
\n\u201cRepeated fears about the blockade of the Red Sea and persistent rise in oil prices are keeping the index red, and investors\u2019 sentiment dampened,\u201d said AAH Soomro, an independent investment and economic analyst.
\nThe pressure came as a spike in oil prices drove Europe\u2019s government borrowing costs to long-term highs on Thursday, with renewed inflation concerns leaving traders bracing for a hawkish European Central Bank meeting later in the day.
\nGlobal share markets were also on the back foot after disappointing earnings from heavyweight chipmaker STMicroelectronics sent its shares tumbling 15%, while Google-parent Alphabet\u2019s plan to raise artificial intelligence spending by another $15 billion this year weighed on European sentiment.
\nThe main focus remained on the renewed surge in oil prices and global borrowing costs after a re-escalation of the conflict in the Middle East between the United States and Iran.
\nThe Iran-aligned Houthis said on Thursday they had struck two Saudi oil tankers as part of a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, threatening to create a second chokepoint for global oil supplies alongside Iran\u2019s near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
\nMeanwhile, the US military carried out a new round of strikes on Iran at President Donald Trump\u2019s direction, marking a 12th successive night of American attacks and prompting further Iranian retaliation.
\nBrent crude jumped 4% to nearly $98 a barrel, putting the psychological $100 threshold within reach and driving Germany\u2019s 10-year bund yield \u2014 the benchmark for euro zone borrowing costs \u2014 above 3.2% for the first time since the bloc\u2019s debt crisis in 2011.
\nThe oil surge also sharpened focus on the ECB meeting. Markets see just a one-in-five chance of another interest rate hike at the meeting, but a four-in-five chance of a hike in September.
\nIn contrast to Europe\u2019s struggles, major Asian markets rose as investors bet that South Korea\u2019s KOSPI and other regional markets would continue to benefit from the AI boom.
\nEarnings from Alphabet and Tesla on Wall Street on Wednesday showed no sign of a slowdown in spending on AI infrastructure, with Alphabet sharply raising its capital expenditure plans for the year.
\nThe KOSPI surged more than 4% overnight in Seoul, led by gains of 4.8% and 3.7% for SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, respectively. Tokyo\u2019s Nikkei and Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng also edged higher.
\nThe PSX had closed sharply lower on Wednesday, with the KSE-100 Index falling 1,703.64 points, or 0.97%, to settle at 174,429.93.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
karachi The bourse came under pressure on Thursday as renewed fears over a Red Sea blockade and a persistent rise in global oil prices dampened investor sentiment. The Pakistan Stock Exchange\u2019s benchmark KSE-100 Index settled at 171,739.44, down 2,690.48 points, or 1.54%. The index had earlier risen to an intraday high of 175,237.59, up 807.67 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":89185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100689,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100676\/revisions\/100689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}