Buying interest returned to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining nearly 2,000 points during the opening minutes of trading on Thursday. At 9:30am, the benchmark index was hovering at 157,764.37, an increase of 1,987.16 points or 1.28%. Buying was observed in key sectors, including automobile assemblers, cement, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs, power generation and refinery. Index-heavy stocks, including ARL, HUBCO, MARI, OGDC, PPL, POL, PSO, SNGPL, SSGC, MCB, MEBL, NBP and UBL, traded in the green. On Wednesday , PSX witnessed another volatile session with the benchmark KSE-100 Index settling in the red as cautious investor sentiment, geopolitical uncertainty and broad intraday swings kept participants on the defensive. The KSE-100 Index declined by 1,354.88 points or 0.86% to close at 155,777.21 points. Globally, Asian shares rallied on Thursday with a decline in US Treasuries, pointing to a tentative recovery in risk ​appetite that has been hammered by the escalating war in the Middle East. South Korea’s KOSPI gauge recovered ‌its steep losses in the prior session following a rally on Wall Street on hopes the United States and Iran will seek an off-ramp from hostilities. Oil and gold traded higher. China set its growth target at a slightly lower pace than the previous year in a closely watched, wide-ranging economic ​plan. The US Senate backed President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran, suggesting no quick resolution to a war that has ​roiled financial markets, transportation networks, and energy production. MSCI’s broadest index ​of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan jumped 2.9%. South Korea’s KOSPI led regional benchmarks with a 10.4% surge, while Japan’s Nikkei jumped 2.9%. The yield on benchmark US 10-year notes rose 2.7 basis points to 4.109%, as the 30-year bond yield rose 3.1 basis points to 4.7479%. The U.S.-Israel war on Iran widened ​sharply on Wednesday after a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship and NATO air defences destroyed an Iranian ballistic missile fired towards ​Turkey. But equity markets in Europe and the U.S. took solace from a pledge by Trump to protect shippers and a New York Times report ‌that Iranian ⁠intelligence had reached out to the CIA early in the war about a path towards ending it. This is an intra-day update