KARACHI:

"Only Pakistan's stock market is booming." This is the line echoing across business circles still recovering from a decade of painful economic stabilisation. And yet, the KSE-100's rise from the low 40,000s to nearly 170,000 – over 300% return in just a few years – cannot be dismissed as coincidence or speculation.

It is fuelled by a combination of deep liquidity, capital market reforms, resilient corporate profitability, strong dividends, and a valuation base so low that blue chips were trading at 3x price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios.

But this naturally triggers the uncomfortable question: if Pakistan's market is so strong, then why did foreigners withdraw $3 billion from PSX in the last 10 years? The answer, like Pakistan's economic trajectory, is layered and complex.

Pakistan'

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