KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday morning suspended trading after a technical fault in its trading network limited access for some brokerages.
According to a PSX notice, the trading was suspended after multiple brokerage houses reported that they were unable to place their orders.
“Due to some technical issues identified in the trading system of the exchange, where more than 25 brokerage houses were unable to access the trading network, the trading has been temporarily suspended by the PSX,” read a notice. It added that the timing of the resumption of the trading network will be notified in the due course.
The benchmark PSX 100 Shares Index was at 36,688, up 186 points, when the trading was suspended.
On Wednesday, the stock market was on an upswing as the KSE-100 Index washed away some of the blood from the bear rampage a day ago, which had dragged the index to a three-year low.
The market closed green for the day, with the index making an intraday high of 329 points and closing with a net gain of 100 points (0.28 per cent) at 36,504.25. Investors may have been comforted by the healthy earnings posted by major banks, Habib, United and MCB.
Activity had picked up pace on speculation of positive upcoming corporate results, which encouraged participants to build positions early in cement, banks and chemicals. In the final hours, profit-taking intensified to wipe off all of the intraday gains and the index took a brief dip in the red, before value investors entered which provided support to the market.
