KARACHI, Nov 5 (Focus Pakistan) - PSX new investors set a record for the second month running in October, even as share prices fell and trading thinned out on the Pakistan Stock Exchange. Young investors piled into low-paperwork Sahulat accounts and pushed the investor base to 681,965.
The base grew by 25,747 during the month. That beats September’s 25,281, which Adviser to the Finance Minister Khurram Schehzad called the highest ever for a single month when he announced it on Oct 1.
The headline number hides a wrinkle. October produced 26,843 account registrations, 1,096 more than the actual rise in investors. A new account does not always translate into a net addition to the investor base.
Under-30s Take Charge
Investors aged 18 to 30 opened 14,634 accounts, close to 55% of the month’s individual registrations. The 31-to-45 group added 9,290. Between them, the two age groups took almost nine of every ten individual accounts.
The KSE-100 Index gained 43.5% in the fiscal year that ended in June, and that rally may have pulled many of them in.
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Sahulat accounts, the simplified route with lighter documentation, made up 20,698 of October’s registrations, or 77%. Normal accounts numbered 6,103, and corporate accounts just 42.
The regulator has spent the past year clearing the path. The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), working with the clearing house, the central depository and the exchange, raised the Sahulat ceiling from Rs1 million to Rs3 million and scrapped duplicate checks for investors coming in through banks, digital banks and electronic money institutions. It also brought in IBAN-based verification.
Sign-Ups Rise, Trading Falls
The record came in a month when the market itself lost steam. The KSE-100 fell 2.1% in October, its second straight monthly decline, and closed at 166,409 points, brokerage research data showed. Average daily volume dropped 21.9% from September to 470 million shares. Daily traded value slid 20.3% to $70.07 million, and foreign investors pulled out $48.8 million.
The contrast raises an obvious question: how many newcomers actually trade? Registration data cannot answer it.
One Woman for Every Six Men
Men opened 22,878 individual accounts in October, and women opened 3,923. That gives women 14.6% of new individual registrations, roughly one account for every six that men opened.
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The map shows a similar imbalance. Punjab contributed 14,891 accounts, nearly double Sindh’s 7,643. Islamabad alone recorded 1,419 registrations, approaching Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s provincial total of 1,894. Balochistan managed 370, about 12 a day.
From January to October, the market added 218,894 investors and lifted the base 47.3% from 463,071. That works out to roughly 720 net additions a day over the first ten months.
The pace has changed beyond recognition. The finance ministry put average monthly additions at about 2,300 in FY23 and FY24, and roughly 5,300 in FY25. October alone delivered more than 11 times the earlier figure.
The momentum has held since summer. Official figures show 23,973 new investors in July, about 23,900 in August based on month-end totals, and 25,281 in September.
The 2.5 Million Question
Capital market authorities want 2.5 million investors and are running a nationwide awareness drive to get there. The market still needs about 1.82 million more, almost 2.7 times its current size.
If October’s record pace held steady, with no acceleration and no slowdown, Pakistan would need around 71 months, nearly six years, to reach the target.
Speed alone will not settle it. October brought a falling market just as the newcomers arrived, though the index bounced to 172,287 on Nov 4. A deeper slump will test them properly. If they keep investing, the boom builds a market. If they let their accounts go quiet, it just fills a register.
The story is 596 words, with no passive voice and no other media outlets named. One small correction to the critique: the headline is 10 words, not 12. I can build the full Yoast package next, including the NewsArticle and FAQ schema.
