Learn · PSX investing guides
Guides to investing on the Pakistan Stock Exchange
Most Pakistani investing advice is either a WhatsApp tip or a wall of jargon. These guides are neither. They are written for someone who has some savings, a CNIC, and no idea how any of this works — and they say plainly when a technique does not work, including our own.
19 guides, explainers and analyses Last updated How we write and correct these
Start here
A reading order for someone with savings and no brokerage account yet. Read them in sequence.
Beginner Before your first trade
5 reads · 42 min
- 1How to Start Investing in the Pakistan Stock Exchange9 min read
- 2Opening a CDC Account and Actually Starting to Trade in Pakistan9 min read
- 3How to Read a Stock Page Without Fooling Yourself9 min read
- 4Understanding the KSE-100: What "The Market" Actually Means7 min read
- 5Why Most Stock Tips Lose Money8 min read
Intermediate Once you own something
6 reads · 50 min
- 6How to Read a PSX Company's Financial Statements8 min read
- 7Dividend Yield vs Growth on the PSX: Two Different Games8 min read
- 8Technical Analysis on the PSX: Using Moving Averages, RSI and MACD Without Fooling Yourself9 min read
- 9What Technical Indicators Cannot Tell You8 min read
- 10Risk Management on a Frontier Market: Position Sizing and Stop-Losses That Survive the PSX9 min read
- 11How AI Models Forecast Stock Trends — and How Much to Trust Them8 min read
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Guides
Step by step: the account, the statements, the indicators, the risk.
Guide
Risk Management on a Frontier Market: Position Sizing and Stop-Losses That Survive the PSX
Position size, not the stop-loss, is the real risk control on the PSX: circuit breakers, price gaps and thin order books mean you often cannot sell at your chosen price. Here is the arithmetic that survives that. 9 min read GuideTechnical Analysis on the PSX: Using Moving Averages, RSI and MACD Without Fooling Yourself
Moving averages, RSI and MACD describe past prices — nothing more. Used in the right order they keep you honest; used as signals they lose money. Here are the mechanics that actually work on the PSX, and where thin volume and circuit breakers make indicators meaningless. 9 min read GuideHow to Read a Stock Page Without Fooling Yourself
A walk through every number on a PSX stock page — price, volume, P/E, RSI, our own AI signal — and an honest account of how much weight each one deserves. 9 min read GuideHow to Read a PSX Company's Financial Statements
Annual reports are free, audited and almost never read. A walk through a PSX income statement and balance sheet, with EPS, P/E, ROE and dividend yield worked by hand — and the red flags those ratios quietly hide. 8 min read GuideHow to Start Investing in the Pakistan Stock Exchange
What it actually takes to buy your first share on the PSX: choosing a broker, opening a CDC sub-account, what it costs, and the mistakes that cost first-timers the most money. 9 min read GuideOpening a CDC Account and Actually Starting to Trade in Pakistan
CDC sub-accounts, Sahulat, your UIN, T+2 settlement — the actual plumbing of buying shares in Pakistan, and the custody mistakes that have cost retail investors more than bad stock picks ever did. 9 min readExplainers
One idea at a time — including where it stops working.
Explainer
The Mistakes That Actually Cost PSX Retail Investors Money
Most PSX losses come not from picking bad companies but from a short list of repeatable behaviours: buying after the run, margin financing, averaging down into a dying business, never planning the exit. Each one has a specific counter-habit. 9 min read ExplainerHow AI Models Forecast Stock Trends — and How Much to Trust Them
An ML price model is a pattern-matcher over history, not a crystal ball. How ours actually works, how backtests get inflated, and why an honest 55% is worth more than a claimed 90%. 8 min read ExplainerWhy Most Stock Tips Lose Money
WhatsApp groups, YouTube calls and "sure-shot" targets are a fixture of Pakistani retail investing. The reasons they fail are structural, not bad luck — and they apply to our signals too. 8 min read ExplainerUnderstanding the KSE-100: What "The Market" Actually Means
The KSE-100 is quoted daily as though it were the Pakistani economy. It is a capitalisation-weighted index of 100 companies with real quirks — and knowing them changes how you read every headline. 7 min read ExplainerDividend Yield vs Growth on the PSX: Two Different Games
On the PSX, dividends are not a bonus — for much of the market they are the return. Growth is scarce, concentrated and violently re-rated in both directions. Knowing which game a stock is playing decides every question worth asking about it, starting with whether a fat yield is a prize or a warning. 8 min read ExplainerWhat Technical Indicators Cannot Tell You
RSI, MACD and moving averages are everywhere on this site and every other. Here is an honest account of what they measure, where they fail, and why "overbought" has cost investors more than it saved. 8 min read ExplainerHow Islamic Investing Works on the PSX: KMI-30 and the Shariah Screens
Shariah screening on the PSX is quantitative, not a sector blacklist: debt ratios, income thresholds and a purification step decide what enters the KMI-30. Here is how the screens actually work, what recomposition means for holders, and what compliance does not promise. 8 min readAnalyses
Sector deep-dives: what actually drives Pakistani company earnings.
Analysis
FIPI and LIPI: Reading the Money Flows That Move the PSX
Every day NCCPL publishes who bought and who sold on the PSX — foreigners, mutual funds, banks, individuals. On a thin market those flows matter, but most people read them wrong: net figures hide churn, one day means nothing, and foreigners are not smart money. 8 min read AnalysisPakistan's Technology and Export Stocks: The Rupee Trade With a Business Attached
IT exporters like SYS earn dollars and pay rupee salaries, so every devaluation widens their margins mechanically. That is the real thesis — and wage inflation, client concentration and a stable rupee are the ways it quietly unwinds. 9 min read AnalysisPSX Market Cycles: How Macro Actually Drives Pakistani Equities
Pakistani equities do not trade on earnings first — they trade on the balance of payments. The same loop has repeated for decades: deficit, IMF, high rates, rate cuts, bull run. Here is the cycle plainly told, and the numbers that track it. 8 min read AnalysisThe Fertiliser Sector: Why FFC and Its Peers Anchor PSX Dividend Portfolios
Why FFC, ENGRO and FATIMA anchor PSX dividend portfolios: urea made from gas, sold for cash, without the receivables pain that hollows out energy stocks. And the gas-tariff question that decides whether those dividends survive. 8 min read AnalysisPakistan's Energy Stocks and the Circular Debt Problem
OGDC and PPL report some of the largest profits on the PSX and trade at some of its lowest P/Es. The gap is circular debt — earnings booked while the cash sits in unpaid receivables. Here is how the chain breaks, why MARI escapes it, and how to read an E&P result honestly. 9 min read AnalysisHow to Analyse Pakistani Bank Stocks: Rates, NIMs and NPLs
Bank earnings on the PSX are a bet on the SBP policy rate. How NIMs, the government-paper habit, ADR tax episodes, NPLs and CASA actually drive HBL, UBL, MCB and MEBL — and when trading below book is deserved. 9 min readMarket Wraps
An automated review of each trading session, written after the close.
- KSE-100 Daily Closing Review — 27 October 20262 min
- KSE-100 Daily Closing Review — 26 October 20262 min
- KSE-100 Daily Closing Review — 23 October 20262 min
- KSE-100 Daily Closing Review — 22 October 20262 min
- KSE-100 Daily Closing Review — 21 October 20262 min
- KSE-100 Daily Closing Review — 20 October 20262 min
- KSE-100 Daily Closing Review — 19 October 20262 min
- KSE-100 Daily Closing Review — 16 October 20262 min
- KSE-100 Daily Closing Review — 15 October 20262 min
- KSE-100 Daily Closing Review — 14 October 20262 min
The latest 10 sessions. Each review is generated from the day's closing data and credited to the editorial desk.
Glossary
Every metric this site displays, defined in plain English — including the ones we think are over-rated and why.