PSX Recovers from Intraday Low of 8,700 Points But Suffers Second Worst Single-Day Drop

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) mirrored the global sell-off on Monday as the benchmark KSE-100 index nosedived to an intraday low of 8,687 points, the largest intraday point-wise drop in history. However, some stability returned during the later hours as the 100-Index closed at 114,909.49 points, down 3,882.17 points, a negative change of 3.27 percent. Brokerage house Topline Securities pointed out that while the 8,687 points decline set a new record in absolute terms, it was not the steepest in percentage terms. The most severe single-session percentage fall remains the 12.4 percent drop on June 1, 1998. In response to the extreme volatility, trading was temporarily halted for one hour, triggered by the KSE-30 index falling more than 5 percent for five consecutive minutes, activating the market’s circuit breaker mechanism. However, some stability returned during the later hours as value hunters stepped in, helping the index recover part of the losses, the brokerage house added. Arif Habib Limited highlighted that the bench mark index registered its second highest day-over-day decline (points wise) in history. A total of 710,788,421 shares were traded during the day as compared to 553,668,391 shares the previous trading day, whereas the price of shares stood at Rs. 43.023billion against Rs. 35.492 billion on the last trading day. As many as 450 companies transacted their shares in the stock market, 52 of them recorded gains and 357 sustained losses, whereas the share price of 41 companies remained unchanged.