After a four-day bull run, the benchmark KSE-100 index plunged 726 points (1.6 per cent) on Thursday to settle in the red at 44,724.09 points.

The market opened at 45,450.31 points, trading flat for the initial hours before reaching an intra-day high of 45,612.95 points (162 points).

But soon after in the afternoon session, shares plummeted, sliding to an intra-day low of 44,641.49 – down over 808 points – around 3:15pm.

The decline comes after a four-day buying spree that mounted the bourse's recovery to 2,662 points, reclaiming over 83pc of the massive losses of 3,058 suffered last week due to political mayhem leading to the election of chairman and deputy chairman of the Senate.

Analysts at Aba Ali Habib Securities said investors gave in to profit-taking today while ignoring the rupee's winning streak.

"Mutual funds took to booking profits on achieving targets after three consecutive bullish sessions during the week, resulting in panic selling amongst investors." Another reason cited by analysts for today's plunge was the rising Covid-19 positivity rate across the acountry.

Internationally, the US Federal Reserve's decision to maintain the interest rate near zero through 2023 along with a GDP growth forecast of 6.5pc in 2021 became an influential factor in the global markets, they added.

The stock market is expected to remain range-bound in the last session of the week, according to analysts.

Major scrips that weighed down the benchmark index were TRG (-101 pts), ENGRO (-46 pts), PSO (-34 pts), PPL (-33 pts), and BAHL (-32 pts), according to the analysts at Aba Ali Habib Securities.

Sector-wise, the technology & communication sector took the spotlight today, generating a volume of 116 million shares. The refinery sector was the runner-up, clocking in a total volume of 84m shares.

The power generation and distribution sector was the third-most traded sector amassing a volume of 55m shares.

The bourse witnessed an overall volume of 554m shares, with the value traded clocking in at Rs23.84 billion. The advance-to-decline ratio favoured the bears as 77 scrips closed green, 266 closed red and 22 remained unchanged.

Earlier this week, investors headed back to the equity market as they perceived political risk to have declined with the Pakistan Democratic Move­ment (PDM) deciding to call off the planned long march. There was a general relief among investors that the government could now focus its attention on other pressing problems on the economic front.

Most stock strategists who were expecting a moderate hike of 50 to 100bps in the monetary policy state­ment to be unveiled on Friday (tomorrow) changed their outlook to the status quo. Persistent appreciation of the rupee and jump in remittances also contributed to the positivity, along with news that the government was engaging banks to launch international bonds for external financing.