Pakistan Stock Exchange Monday nosedived due to panic selling by local and foreign investors. BRIndex100 lost 141.35 points or 3.24 percent to close at 4,215.72 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,337.18 and intraday low of 4,190.73 points. Volumes stood at 184.313 million shares.

BRIndex30 declined by 779.64 points or 3.42 percent to close at 21,988.82 points with total daily turnover of 137.125 million shares. The KSE-100 Index plunged by 1221.55 points or 2.93 percent to close at 40,409.38 points. Daily trading volumes increased to 203.139 million shares as compared to 193.866 million shares traded last Friday.

Foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $1.7 million. The market capitalization declined by Rs 203 billion to stand at Rs 7.648 trillion. Out of total 351 active scrips, 296 closed in negative, only 43 in positive while the value of 12 stocks remained unchanged.

Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 23.527 million shares. However, it lost Re 0.35 to close at Rs 12.84 followed by Hascol Petrol that declined by Re 0.41 to close at Rs 25.31 with 12.737 million shares. Sapphire Textile and Sapphire Fiber were the top gainers with Rs 46.88 and Rs 39.96, respectively to close at Rs 911.99 and Rs 705.96. Colgate Palmolive and Rafhan Maize were the top losers with Rs 147.41 and Rs 127.67, respectively to close at Rs 2,309.54 and Rs 6,772.33.

BR Automobile Assembler Index declined by 142.53 points or 2.32 percent to close at 6,009.63 points with total turnover of 1.264 million shares. BR Cement Index decreased by 138.97 points or 3.59 percent to close at 3,735.96 points with 27.432 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index plunged by 278.82 points or 2.84 percent to close at 9,547.02 points with 40.749 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 96.23 points or 1.71 percent to close at 5,529.10 points with 12.689 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 199.31 points or 4.18 percent to close at 4,570.84 points with 29.475 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,042.21 points, down 10.7 points or 1.02 percent with 26.412 million shares. Danish Ladhani at JS Global Capital said that the market nosedived more than 3.3 percent during the trading session as headline inflation skyrocketed to a multi-year high of 14.56 percent on year-on-year basis, surpassing the market consensus of 13.5-13.7 percent. PPL (down 5.3 percent), HBL (down 3.7 percent), ENGRO (down 3.8 percent), OGDC (down 4.2 percent), MCB (down 3.8 percent), BAHL (down 2.8 percent), POL (down 3.7 percent) and LUCK (down 3.5 percent) cumulatively contributed negative 580 points towards the negative index close.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that the stocks closed record bearish amid major selloff in Asian equities on worries over economic impact of China virus and dismal data of 14.6 percent CPI Inflation in January 2020 likely to impact SBP policy. He said foreign outflows and weak global crude oil prices and concerns over impact of hike in local gas tariff on corporate earnings played a catalytic role in the record fall at PSX.