A bearish trend continued to prevail at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) as the benchmark KSE 100 shares index plunged 196 points on Monday to close 41,240.

The market adopted a negative trend from the start of trading. Its opening at 41,436 points remained the day's high, whereas the benchmark touched a bottom of 41,142 points during intra-day trading.

"The market overall witnessed a very dull trading session as general lack of interest from institutions and retail investors alike culminated in a dismal turnover of just under $35 million on KSE All Index — the lowest since May 2015," noted Elixir Securities.

"Negativity in the market can be attributed to a cautious stance adopted by investors ahead of the semi-annual review of the MSCI-Emerging Markets index," according to JS Global Capital.

"Lack of any trigger and political instability remain a key concern for investors. Concerns over delay in the conduct of General Elections and outcome of accountability cases against the ruling government have kept investors sidelined despite cheap valuations," noted an analyst from Topline Securities.

In all, 87.4m shares worth Rs3.7 billion changed hands during the session. Out of a total of 347 scrips traded on Monday, 115 advanced, 205 declined and 27 remained unchanged.

The communication sector dominated trading with 15.4 million shares traded, whereas the engineering and textile sectors followed with 10.6m and 8.1m shares traded, respectively.

Volumes were led by:

TRG Pak Ltd: 13m shares traded [+4.10pc];

Azgard Nine: 7.5m shares traded [+0.84pc];

Dost Steels Ltd.: 7.0m shares traded [+1.20pc];

Dewan Motors: 3.4m shares traded [+4.94pc];

Engro Polymer XD: 2.8m shares traded [+1.85pc].