Bears dominated the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday, with the benchmark KSE-100 index losing 412 points, or 0.88 per cent, to close at 46,466.
The market hit its high point at 46,929 within the first half hour of trading, but continued to fall and marked 46,336 as the day's low towards the close of trading.
Analyst Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corp attributed the bullish activity to corporate results falling short of expectations in the fertilisers and banking sector.
"Weak banking spreads, concerns for surging circular debt in the energy sector, falling global crude prices, foreign outflows and concerns for political noise played a catalyst role in the bearish close," he added.
Commercial banks dominated the session with 45.5m shares traded, while technology and engineering sectors followed with 22m and 21.7m shares traded respectively.
Around 100 million shares worth Rs7.1 billion were traded during the day. Shares of a total of 384 companies were traded in the session, of which 106 advanced, 263 declined and 15 remained unchanged.
Volumes were led by:
Bank of Punjab: 17m shares traded [-4.88pc];
K-Electric Ltd: 14.8m shares traded [+0.69pc];
Summit Bank: 14.8m shares traded [-18.66pc];
TRG Pak Ltd: 8.2m shares traded [-4.80pc];
Byco Petroleum: 8.0m shares traded [-2.39pc].
