KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Wednesday shed 0.72% owing to rising political unrest in the country.
At close on Wednesday, the KSE-100 Index settled at 41,074.95 level, a decrease of 298.86 points or 0.72%.
Although the market lost some ground as trading got underway, it soon recovered and stayed range-bound until lunchtime. At this point, a purchasing frenzy put the market in the black, but a selling spurt in the closing hours caused it to end in the red.
Index-heavy automobile, banking, cement, fertilizer and oil sectors saw massive selling.
Sectors pushing the benchmark KSE-100 index towards the red zone included banking (76.37 points), oil and gas exploration (63.61 points) and technology and communication (35.20 points).
Volume on the all-share index plunged to 99.2 million from 203.1 million on Tuesday, while the value of shares traded fell to Rs3.3 billion from Rs5.85 billion recorded in the previous session.
WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 14.3 million shares followed by TPL Properties with 6.2 million shares and Bank Al-Falah with 4 million shares.
Shares of 313 companies were traded on Wednesday, of which 98 registered an increase, 194 recorded a fall and 21 remained unchanged.
