Stocks plunge 400 points on foreign selling
KARACHI: Stocks caved into selling pressure at the Pakistan equities market on Monday in the lead of cement, steel and oil scrips.
The KSE-100 index sank to intraday low by 650 points before late recovery in select blue-chip scrips helped index close with a loss of 399.84 points (0.98 per cent) at 40,520.47.
There were a host of negative factors that kept investor interest in equities subdued. While the market worried about the looming balance of payments crisis, the air was thick with suspense over the quantum of hike in gas tariff. The Economic Coordination Committee’s approval of gas price increase, which came after the trading hours, was set to put minimum load on domestic consumers.
The concerns on the reported Public Sector Development Programme cuts, increase in regulatory and custom duties on a number of imported goods in the mini-budget anticipated to appear on Tuesday kept the market under pressure.