Business
Rising share prices propel Pakistan Stock Exchange to all-time high – SUCH TV
The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) opened the week with a bang as share price went through the roof tossing the index to another historic level on Monday. At 12.15 pm, the PSX’s benchmark KSE-100 index was hovering at 187,144.34, an increase of 2,045.51 points or 1.09%.
Out of 562 active companies in the market, share prices of 304 companies advanced, 146 declined, while 112 remained unchanged.
Buying interest was observed in key sectors, including automobile assemblers, cement, commercial banks, fertilizer, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs, power generation, and refinery.
Index-heavy stocks, including ARL, HUBCO, MARI, OGDC, POL, PPL, PSO, SNGPL, SSGC, MCB, MEBL, and NBP, traded in the green.
Analysts attributed the buying rally to expectations of a policy rate cut in the upcoming Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, which is scheduled for 26 January 2026.
Earlier on Friday, the PSX had staged a strong recovery, snapping days-long bearish momentum as increasing forex reserves had lifted investor sentiments.
The KSE-100 index gained a whopping 3,159.72 points to climb to 184,616.05 points, marking a positive change of 1.74% compared to the previous close of 181,456.33 points.
Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves inched up by $16 million over the past week, according to figures released by the State Bank of Pakistan.
The central bank said its official reserves rose from $16.0557 billion to $16.0718 billion, showing a modest gain during the week.
Overall, the country’s total reserves climbed to $21.2484 billion.
The State Bank also noted that commercial banks’ holdings went up by $5.6 million, reaching $5.1927 billion.
Officials said the uptick offers some breathing space for the economy, even as the country continues to keep a close watch on external inflows and outflows.
The supply chain risk designation of the artificial intelligence firm is a first for a US company.
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UniQure needs to run another study to prove that its gene therapy “actually helps people with Huntington’s disease,” a senior U.S. Food and Drug Administration official said on a call with reporters Thursday.
The official, who requested anonymity before discussing sensitive information, confirmed the agency has asked the company to run a placebo controlled trial of its treatment, which is administered directly into the brain. UniQure has said that type of study isn’t ethical because it would require putting people under general anesthesia for hours, a characterization the official disputed.
“So what is really going on? UniQure is the latest company to make a failed therapy for Huntington’s patients,” the official said. “They likely acknowledge or understand at some deep level that their trial failed years ago, and instead of doing the right thing and running the correct clinical study, UniQure is performing a distorted or manipulated comparison in the mind of FDA.”
The comments mark the latest development in a messy public spat between UniQure and the FDA, and as the agency comes under fire for a number of recent drug approval application rejections, including some where companies have accused it of going back on previous guidance. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary in an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick last week seemingly criticized UniQure’s gene therapy for Huntington’s disease. Makary didn’t name UniQure but described its treatment.
UniQure then accused the FDA of reversing its stance that the company’s clinical trial data would be sufficient to seek approval. UniQure’s study used an outside database to measure how patients with Huntington’s disease might decline without treatment, known as an external control. UniQure has said it wouldn’t be feasible to run a true randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study, considered the gold standard, because it wouldn’t be ethical to make people undergo a sham hours-long brain surgery.
The FDA official said the agency “never agreed to accept this distorted comparison” and the FDA “never makes such assurances.” Instead, the “FDA will always say, ‘Well, we have to see the data when we get it.'”
UniQure didn’t immediately comment.
The company’s stock rose more than 10% on Thursday and has fallen 58% this year as of Thursday afternoon.
Business
US mortgage rates rise to 6% after three-week slide as oil-driven bond yields climb – The Times of India
The average long-term US mortgage rate edged higher this week, ending a three-week decline as bond yields rose amid oil-price pressures linked to the war with Iran.The benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage rate increased to 6% from 5.98% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said on Thursday. A year ago, the average rate stood at 6.63%, AP reported.The modest uptick breaks a three-week slide in borrowing costs, with mortgage rates having hovered close to the 6% mark for most of this year. Last week’s average had marked the first time the rate dipped below 6% since September 2022, reaching its lowest level in nearly three and a half years.Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, including the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate policy, investor expectations about inflation and economic growth, and movements in the bond market.They typically track the direction of the 10-year US Treasury yield, which lenders use as a benchmark for pricing home loans.The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.14% at midday Thursday, up from around 4% a week earlier.Treasury yields have moved higher in recent days as rising oil prices added fresh inflation concerns, potentially complicating the Federal Reserve’s plans to cut interest rates.
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