Pakistan Stock Exchange Crashes; Website Down Amid India-Pakistan Tensions
New Delhi: Amid the escalating tension between India and Pakistan, the official website of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) has gone offline followed by a deadly terror attack in Kashmir’s Pahalgam. The outage came as the stock market opened sharply lower, reacting to strong retaliatory measures announced by the Indian government after the attack, which claimed 26 lives.
The PSX website is currently showing a “We’ll be back soon” message, but there’s no update yet on what caused the outage or when the site will be back online. The website crash came after the PSX saw a steep decline for two days in a row. On Thursday, the KSE-100 index plunged 2.12 per cent—a drop of 2,485.85 points—within just five minutes of opening, ending the day at 114,740.29. This followed another sharp fall on Wednesday, bringing the total two-day loss to over 2,500 points.
The sharp market drop and website crash came during rising tensions between India and Pakistan after a terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, which targeted tourists. The incident created uncertainty on both sides of the border. While India’s Dalal Street also slipped by around 1,000 points, the sudden shutdown of Pakistan’s stock exchange website has added to investor worries across the region.
The PSX website currently shows a simple message saying it’s under maintenance and will be back soon. However, no official explanation has been given for the sudden crash. Along with rising regional tensions, Pakistan’s stock market is also under pressure due to economic challenges. Just a day earlier, the IMF lowered Pakistan’s GDP growth forecast for this financial year to 2.6 per cent, adding to investor worries and triggering more selling in the market.
As tensions rise between India and Pakistan following the Pahalgam terror attack, Pakistan announced on Thursday that it will ban Indian airlines from using its airspace.
