The bearish trend at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) continued on Thursday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index losing 450 points to fall below the 45,000 mark.

The positive opening at the index lasted only a few minutes, and midway through the day got only worse, with the index marking an intra-day low of over 700 points before closing at 44,747.

Elixir Securities attributed the fall to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) "now seeing country’s growth for FY19 slowing down to 4.7pc against the government's growth target of 6.2pc for next year."

In all, 144.2 million shares worth Rs6.6 billion were traded at the exchange. Of the 373 traded stocks, only 85 advanced, 271 declined and 17 remained unchanged.

The chemical sector dominated trading with 28.4m shares traded, while commercial banking and cement followed with 22.2m and 12.9m shares traded respectively.

Volumes were led by:

1. Bank Of Punjab: 14.1m shares traded [-1.97pc];

2. Lotte Chemical Pakistan Ltd: 10.7m shares traded [-3.43pc];

3. Unity Foods Limited: 8.1m shares traded [-4.98pc];

4. Nimir Resins Limited: 7.6m shares traded [+1.76pc];

5. Fauji Cement Co Ltd: 5.5m shares traded [+0.28pc].