A declining trend continued on Pakistan Stock Exchange due to panic selling on investor concerns over deadly coronavirus spread. BRIndex100 lost 117.28 points or 3.4 percent to close at 3,331.85 points on Tuesday. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 3,471.68 and intraday low of 3,299.33 points. Volumes stood at 227.625 million shares.

BRIndex30 declined by 389.37 points or 2.28 percent to close at 16,691.49 points with a turnover of 168.175 million shares. The KSE-100 Index plunged by 1,067.98 points or 3.17 percent to 32,616.93 points. Daily trading volumes increased to 240.379 million shares as compared to 215.437 million shares traded Monday.

Foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $5.6 million. The market capitalization declined by Rs 180 billion to Rs 6.233 trillion. Out of total 355 active scrips, 251 closed in negative, only 86 in positive while the value of 18 stocks remained unchanged.

Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 24.610 million shares. However, it lost Re 0.60 to close at Rs 8.50 followed by Pioneer Cement that declined by Rs 2.94 to close at Rs 36.37 with 20.079 million shares.

Sapphire Fiber and Shezan International were the top gainers with Rs 50.59 and Rs 19.01, respectively to close at Rs 729.99 and Rs 334.00. Unilever Foods and Colgate Palmolive were the top losers with Rs 150.00 and Rs 117.55 respectively to close at Rs 6,950.00 and Rs 2,249.39.

BR Automobile Assembler Index declined by 152.15 points or 2.83 percent to close at 5,224.51 points with total turnover of 1.655 million shares.

BR Cement Index decreased by 118.72 points or 3.03 percent to close at 3,805.16 points with 63.426 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index plunged by 458.97 points or 5.9 percent to close at 7,323.84 points with 45.980 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index shed 110.69 points or 2.52 percent to close at 4,282.74 points with 11.219 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 123.7 points or 3.78 percent to close at 3,149.13 points with 30.564 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 802.46 points, down 23.07 points or 2.79 percent with 13.635 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market opened on a negative note with negative 319 points and 1.4 million shares traded at the opening bell. Monday's negative close of world financial markets, especially US markets caused damage to investor sentiment and positive opening of US Futures Indices and rebound of international crude oil prices failed to stem the selling pressure.

Banks and E&P stocks traded at and near lower circuit breakers. Cement sector traded positive in the early session, however, news of abrupt cancellation of PSL (Pakistan Super League) due to fear of spread of coronavirus reversed the gains in cement sector. Hope of a major rate cut by Central Bank seems to fade away with Indian Central Bank's decision to maintain status quo, which also resulted in selling pressure.

Cement sector posted trading volumes of 63.3 million shares followed by banks (45.9 million shares) and O&GMCs (20.8 million shares).

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (down 531 points), E&P (down 147 points), Cement (down 85 points), O&GMCs (down 65 points), Textile (down 63 points) and Fertilizer (up 23 points).

Stocks that contributed positively include ENGRO (up 13 points), FFC (up 13 points), EPCL (up 10 points), HMB (up 7 points) and DGKC (up 6 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HBL (down 156 points), UBL (106 points), MCB (down 102 points), LUCK (down 80 points) and PPL (down 63 points).