A bearish spell continued to prevail at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index plunging 411 points to close at 42,942.

The index showed mixed activity during the first few hours of the session, but saw a negative trend for the rest of the session. It reached a day's high of 43,451 points during the first few minutes, whereas it hit a day's low of 42,860 points near the close.

Volumes edged up, with 219.5 million shares worth Rs7.6 billion changed hands, compared to 207m shares worth Rs7.8b traded yesterday. Of the 374 traded scrips, 89 advanced, 268 declined and 17 remained unchanged.

"Investors traded cautiously ahead of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) key meeting in Paris next week as the United States and few European countries plan to table a motion with FATF to put Pakistan back on its watchlist," a report issued by the Topline Securities read.

The report added that interest was seen in mid‐tier banks amid attractive valuations. Sector-wise data, according to the report, suggests that the fertilizer sector eroded 75 points from the index, followed by the cement and oil and gas marketing sectors, which cumulatively took away 126 index points.

Overall, communication scrips dominated trading with 37.2m shares traded, while the chemical and textile sectors followed with 24.1m and 23.6m shares changing hands.

Volumes were led by:

• Azgard Nine: 19.8m shares traded [+3.77pc];

• P.T.C.L: 15.4m shares traded [-0.56pc];

• Fauji Foods Ltd: 14.0m shares traded [+0.39pc];

• Lotte Chemical: 10.7m shares traded [-3.28pc];

• TRG Pak Ltd: 9.3m shares traded [-5.00pc].