KARACHI: Meltdown continued at the Pakistan stocks on Tuesday where the regional markets’ descend shadowed the local bourse’s trading activity largely with the index remaining under selling pressure throughout the day, closing down by 1.45%.

The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE)-100 index lost 475.44 points to close at 32,214.58 points as compared to 32,690.02 of the previous session. The KSE-30 Index shed 315.28 points and closed at 19,268.92 points against 19,584.20 points of the last closing.

“Pakistan equities skid by 1.45% as participants tracked the latest rout in the region. Stocks opened negative and plummeted on thin volumes with the KSE100 index dipping by near 650 points in intra day. Leaded by the declines in Oils and Financials, most sectors closed lower,” said Elixir Securities’ analyst Faisal Bilwani.

Bilwani expects the market to consolidate at current levels with participants closely tracking the region and commodities in absence of major trigger.

The Global Securities’ analyst said the bourse once again remained negative throughout the day, with comparatively decent turnover of 114 million shares. Immediately after the opening bell, the market nose-dived and touched intra-day low of 32,025 while settling to 32,214 at the close.

He said the interest in specific stocks was witnessed during the day, as institutional investors opted to buy near the lower levels. “We expect market to remain range bound and sustain the index level of 32,000 in the near future,” he added.

The market volume increased to 178.739 million shares traded as compared to 110.867 million shares traded in the previous session. Trading value at the local bourse rose to Rs 6.962 billion against Rs 4.743 billion of the previous session. Out of 359 scrips, 65 scrips advanced, 281 scrips declined while the value of 13 scrips remained unchanged.

The KMI-30 index declined by 781.79 points to close at 53,787.47 points as compared to 54,569.26 points of the previous session.

The KSE all-share index went 291.28 points down to close at 22,611.2 points as compared to 22,902.50 points of the previous session. K-Electric Limited was the volume leader in the market with 24.558 million shares as it closed at Rs 7.04 followed by TRG Pak Limited with trading of 16.681 million shares and closed at Rs 32.01. Jah.Sid.Co traded 10.077 million shares and closed at Rs 18.02.