A bloodbath was seen at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday as confusion over Nawaz Sharif's controversial remarks regarding the 26/11 Mumbai attacks prevailed even in the aftermath of a National Security Council meeting.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index opened lower and lost 1,096 points to close at 42,499 after trading in the negative zone for the entire session.
"Market caved in to selling pressure as political noise in the country rose given civil-military tensions over ousted prime minister's remarks involving Mumbai attacks," a not by Elixir securities said. "This along with persistent foreign selling, uncertainty over macro-economics and lack of near-term positive triggers led to the broader market meltdown," it added.
It noted that this was the market's biggest decline in over five months.
In all, 176 million shares worth Rs7.13 billion were traded at the exchange. Of the 337 traded scrips, only 35 advanced while 291 declined and 11 remained unchanged.
The commercial banking sector dominated trading with 20.3m shares traded, followed by cement and chemical sectors with 18.7m and 16.6m shares traded respectively.
Volumes were led by:
K-Electric Limited: 12.1m shares traded [-4.46pc];
First Dawood Investment Bank Ltd: 8.8m shares traded [+1.99pc];
Bank Of Punjab: 8.7m shares traded [-4.27pc];
Fauji Cement Co Ltd: 8.2m shares traded [-4.93pc];
Lotte Chemical Pakistan Ltd: 6.6m shares traded [-4.49pc].
