There was no stopping the bulls at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), with the benchmark KSE-100 Index crossing the 175,000 level for the first time in history during the opening minutes of trading on the final session of the year on Wednesday. At 9:55am, the benchmark index was hovering at 175,074.18, an increase of 601.39 points or 0.34%. Buying was observed in key sectors, including automobile assemblers, cement, commercial banks, fertiliser, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs and power generation. Index-heavy stocks, including HUBCO, MARI, POL, PPL, OGDC, PSO, HBL, MEBL and MCB, traded in the green. Federal Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives, Ahsan Iqbal, on Tuesday, said that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 3.71% in the first quarter of the 2025-26 financial year, which is a 2.15% increase during the same period of 2024-25. On Tuesday, the PSX continued positive momentum , and the KSE-100 Index closed on a strong note at a fresh all-time high level. The benchmark index increased by 576.45 points to close at a new all-time high of 174,473 points. Internationally, Asian stocks drifted on the last trading day of a year that has seen investors brush off much of the tariff-related uncertainty and embrace AI chip stocks, while the dollar’s dismal year has left the euro and sterling standing tall. Japanese markets are closed for the rest of the week, and with most markets closed on Thursday for the New Year’s Day holiday, volumes are likely to be thin, and moves muted. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.17% lower on Wednesday as investors weighed the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s December meeting that underscored deep divisions among policymakers about US rates. The index is poised to clock a 27% increase for the year, its sharpest rise since 2017, mainly on a strong rally in chipmakers amid the boom in artificial intelligence-related stocks. China’s blue-chip index inched higher, on course for an 18% increase for the year, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.7% but was looking to clock a 28% gain for 2025 as investors shrugged off trade war worries. South Korea’s Kospi is the best-performing major stock market in the world, rising 76% in the year, with a lot of those gains coming from SK Hynix and Samsung. This is an intra-day update