The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) commenced the week on a negative note, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 598 points to close at 38,482, down 1.5 per cent.

The benchmark showed some upward momentum in the first few minutes of the session to hit a day's high of 39,437 points. The market, however, failed to sustain the positive momentum and continued on a downward trajectory for rest of the session. It hit a day's low of 38,375 points near the close of trading.

"The KSE‐100 Index continued to crash hard, clocking in a fresh 2017 intra‐day low of 38,375 points," read a Topline Securities market review. According to the report, this has pushed the KSE‐100's year-to-date decline to 20 per cent, while the index is currently down 27pc from its peak.

"Recently volatility in the rupee's value raised sector specific confusion," read the report, adding that political uncertainty in the country where a deadlock in Senate over the proposed delimitation bill has raised concerns over timely elections in 2018.

In all, over 129.4 million shares worth Rs5.9 billion changed hands during the session. A total of 361 companies' shares were traded, out of which 52 advanced, 294 declined, whereas 15 remained unchanged.

The communication sector dominated trading with 28.2 m shares traded, while the power generation and distribution and engineering sectors followed with 12.9 m and 10.5m shares traded respectively.

Volumes were led by:

• WorldCall Telecom: 18.5m shares traded [-4.79pc];

• TRG Pak Ltd: 8.3m shares traded [-5.00pc];

• K-Electric Ltd: 5.9m shares traded [-2.43pc];

• Azgard Nine: 4.6m shares traded [-6.63pc];

• Shabbir Tiles: 4.5m shares traded [+2.11pc].