The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday landed in the red as the bears dominated the session, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index plunging 262 points to close at 38,384.

The benchmark index showed mixed activity during the initial part of the session, hitting a day's high of 38,703 points, up almost 59 points, soon after the commencement of trading. Subsequently. the market adopted a negative momentum for the rest of the session and hit a day's low of 38,337 points near the close of trading.

In all, only 50 million shares worth Rs2.67 billion changed hands during the session as compare to 140m shares worth Rs9.1b on the last trading day.

A total of 323 companies' shares were traded, out of which 80 advanced, 229 declined, whereas 14 remained unchanged.

The communication sector dominated trading with 7.4m shares traded, while the banking and cement sectors followed with 4.9m and 4.4m shares traded respectively.

According to a JS Global report, political uncertainty was responsible for the bearish momentum. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's announcement in connection with the date of next general elections did not suffice to remove investors' jitters, read the report.

"Volumes during the day stood at the lowest since July 2014," the report noted, adding that the trading value was down 71 per cent as compared to Friday's activity.

Volumes were led by:

• TRG Pak Ltd: 4.3m shares traded [-4.97pc];

• Azgard Nine: 3.4m shares traded [+0.14pc];

• Crescent Star(R: 2.2m shares traded [-21.05pc];

• WorldCall Telecom: 2.1m shares traded [-3.04pc];

• Dolmen City XD: 1.9m shares traded [+0.09pc].