What a market is and why prices move
After this lesson you can explain any price move in terms of buyers, sellers, supply, demand, news and liquidity, instead of blaming rumours or 'whales'.
Market kya hai aur price kyun hilti hai
Market sirf khareedne aur bechne walon ki mulaqat ka naam hai, chahe Itwar bazaar ho, PSX ho ya crypto exchange. Jo price screen par hai woh bas aakhri sauda hai. Har trade mein ek khareedar aur ek bechne wala hota hai. Price tab hilti hai jab ek taraf zyada jaldi mein ho: khareedar jaldi mein hon to price upar jati hai, bechne wale jaldi mein hon to neeche.
Supply matlab kitna maal bikne ke liye hai, demand matlab kitne log lena chahte hain. Khabar logon ki umeedein badalti hai, aur umeedein badlein to khareedne ya bechne ki jaldi bhi badal jati hai. Liquidity batati hai ke price kitni door jayegi. Bitcoin ya bari PSX companies mein bara order bhi khamoshi se jazb ho jata hai, lekin patla coin thore se paison se 10% upar ya neeche chala jata hai.
Islam mein munasib qeemat woh hai jis par dono taraf azaadi se raazi hon (Quran 4:29). Price ka hilna masla nahi. Masla dhoka hai: jhooti khabar phailana, ya mil kar price upar le ja kar der se aane walon ko bech dena. Quran doosron ka maal na-haq khane se mana karta hai (2:188). Na dhoka dein, na asaan shikaar banein.
- Price bas aakhri sauda hai, aur tab hilti hai jab ek taraf zyada jaldi mein ho.
- Supply, demand aur khabar se logon ki jaldi badalti hai; liquidity tay karti hai ke price kitni door jayegi.
- Patle market thore paison se bohat hilte hain, is liye chhote coins tezi se pump aur crash hote hain.
Poora sabaq neeche English mein hai. Quiz English mein hai; asaan alfaaz mein.
Sana teaches chemistry in Islamabad and does the family shopping at the Sunday bazaar. After floods cut supply from Sindh, she watched tomatoes jump from Rs 150 to Rs 400 a kilo in two weeks, then slide back once new trucks arrived. The same month, a small coin her colleague owns jumped 60% in an hour after one post on X, then fell 45% the next day. The colleague says 'someone is controlling it'. Sana suspects the tomatoes and the coin follow the same rules, but she cannot yet explain how.
A price is the last deal, nothing more
A market is simply buyers and sellers meeting, in a bazaar, on the Pakistan Stock Exchange or on a crypto exchange. The price you see is the last deal that happened. Every trade has a buyer and a seller: for everyone who bought at the top, someone else sold there. Prices move when one side is more eager than the other. Eager buyers accept higher prices; eager sellers accept lower ones.
Supply, demand and news
Supply is how much is available to sell: a tomato harvest, the gold mined each year, new shares issued, or new coins released in a 'token unlock'. Demand is how many people want to own it, and how badly. News moves prices because it changes expectations, and expectations change eagerness. A State Bank rate decision can move the KMI-30 the same day. US inflation data moves gold and Bitcoin. An exchange hack scares buyers away from a coin.
- More supply, same demand: pressure down.
- More demand, same supply: pressure up.
- News changes expectations first, then prices.
- Prices often move before news is public, and less after it.
Liquidity: why small coins move so violently
Liquidity is how much can be bought or sold near the current price without moving it much. Bitcoin, gold and large PSX companies are deep markets: big orders are absorbed quietly. A small coin can be so thin that a few lakh rupees push it up 10% in a minute, and the same amount pushes it down again. Low daily volume, a wide gap between buying and selling prices, and long wicks on the chart are the usual signs.
The same $50,000 order in a deep and a thin market
Coin A has $2,000,000 of sell orders within 1% of its price. A $50,000 market buy uses one fortieth of that and moves the price about 0.025%. Nobody notices.
Coin B has only $20,000 of sell orders within 1%, and the next $30,000 is spread between 1% and 10% above the price. The same $50,000 buy clears all of it and lifts the price about 10% in seconds.
That is how one post can 'pump' a thin coin 60%: it does not take much money. It also means that when early buyers sell, there are few buyers below to catch the fall.
In Islam, a fair price is what buyers and sellers agree freely, and the Quran describes lawful exchange as trade by mutual consent (Quran 4:29). Price moves in themselves are not a problem; they are how a market reflects harvests, news and needs. What spoils a market is deception: spreading false news, hiding defects, or coordinating to push a price up and sell to the people who arrive late. The Quran forbids consuming one another's wealth unjustly (Quran 2:188), and scholars apply this to rumour-driven pumps and fake volume. Your task is to be neither the deceiver nor the easy target.
Education, not a fatwa. Where scholars differ, we say so. See what scholars say.
Explaining every move with a story after it happens: 'it rose on ETF news', 'whales dumped it'. Stories feel like knowledge but predict little. The costly version is buying a thin coin because of a post: you arrive after the jump, the early buyers are selling to you, and there are very few buyers underneath when the price turns.
Open the Bitcoin daily chart with volume. Look at the last 30 candles and note roughly how big a typical daily move is, in %. Then change the symbol to a small coin you have heard about and compare: how often does it move 10% or more in a day, how long are its wicks, and how does its volume look? Write one sentence on which market is deeper and what that means for you.
Open the daily chart →Key takeaways
- A price is only the last deal between a buyer and a seller, and it moves when one side is more eager.
- Supply, demand and news change eagerness; liquidity decides how far the price travels.
- Thin markets move a lot on little money, which is why small coins pump and collapse so fast.
Check yourself
Pass with 2 of 3 to complete the lesson. Answers are checked on our server, so the certificate means something.
Barqish is an educational platform. Nothing here is financial advice or an instruction to buy or sell, and screening is not a fatwa. Spot ownership only: no leverage, no short selling. Updated 30 September 2026.