KARACHI: The bearish note continued till midday as the Pakistan Stock Exchange dropped 195.52 points to reach 39303.57 points level on Monday.
Earlier, the stocks opened negative, shedding 156.25 points to drop to 39342.84 points level in early trading.
Last week, the PSX witnessed profit taking during the outgoing week after crossing 40,000 points. Benchmark KSE-100 index closed at 408 points (-1 percent WoW) lower at 39,499 points, with almost all major index heavyweights namely cements (down 0.7 percent WoW on increasing coal prices and strong price run during 2016TD, fertilisers (down 2.6 percent WoW on increasingly weak outlook), banks (down 2.0 percent WoW on continuous foreign selling) and gas utilities (down 3.1 percent WoW after strong price run up), witnessing correction at high levels.
However, the heavyweight oil & gas sector (+1.4 percent WoW) fared better than the rest during the week on the back of rising international crude oil prices. Overall participation recorded improvement with average value traded increasing by 13 percent WoW to $124million/day as corporate result announcements picked up.