The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) commenced trading on a positive note, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index trading over 400 points during the opening minutes of trading on Wednesday. At 9:35am, the benchmark index was hovering at 170,878.64, an increase of 431.35 points or 0.25%. Buying interest was observed in key sectors, including cement, commercial banks, fertiliser, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs, power generation and refinery. Index-heavy stocks, including ARL, MARI, POL, SNGPL, HBL, MEBL, NBP and UBL, traded in the green. Pakistan’s equity market ended yesterday’s session in negative territory as broad-based selling outweighed early optimism, leaving investors cautious despite improved liquidity and heightened participation across key sectors. The KSE-100 Index slipped 294.05 points, or 0.17%, to close at 170,447.30 points. Internationally, global share markets drifted on Wednesday after a mixed US jobs reading failed to move the needle on the rate outlook there, leaving investors awaiting fresh cues for their next moves. In the broader market, stocks drifted higher as investors mostly looked past Tuesday’s long-awaited US nonfarm payrolls report. While jobs growth rebounded more than expected in November following its biggest drop in nearly five years in October, the unemployment rate rose to 4.6%, the highest in more than four years. But analysts said there was a lot of noise in the data, which was impacted by the government’s record 43-day shutdown. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.24%, helped by Chinese markets, while Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.35%. Nasdaq futures and S&P 500 futures were flat, after a mixed cash session on Wall Street. Fed funds futures suggest markets are still pricing in roughly two US rate cuts next year, with the latest labour market reading doing little to shift expectations. The next key data point for investors will be Thursday’s release of the US November inflation report. This is an intra-day update