Karachi: The Pakistan Stock Exchange crashed on Monday in the wake of military action in Afghanistan and countrywide protests by an extremist religious party, creating uncertainty among investors.
The KSE-100 index plunged nearly 3,000 points at the opening, falling to 160,126 from Friday's close of 163,000, with the downward trend persisting through the afternoon.
Financial Analyst Intikhab Ali of Capital Investments said the negative trend had been visible in the market since last week due to the uncertain political situation and the return of the IMF delegation from Pakistan.
Last week, the KSE-100 index shed around 7,000 points, trading in the red throughout.
Intikhab said global financial market uncertainty had also dampened investor sentiment at the start of trading on Monday.
The KSE index had touched a record high of 169,000 points before the decline began.
"We have to see whether this is a correction or a decline has begun with investors losing confidence even though auto shares are trading today at high rates," stock market analyst Kamal Anwar said.
(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and auto-generated from an agency feed.)
