Karachi: Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed some consolidation as benchmark KSE-100 closed lower by 258 points. KSE-100 started session positive, hitting an intra-day high of 75,618.49.

However, profit-taking kicked in in latter hours and pushed index into negative territory. At close, benchmark index settled at 75,084.00, down by 258.34 points or 0.34 percent.  Fertiliser, banking and IT sectors made positive contributions, with SYS, MEBL, TRG and FFBL collectively adding 122 points. Conversely, ENGRO, MCB and HBL collectively lost 143 points. “Over 375 million shares were traded at bourse, with total value of Rs 16.2 billion. Notably, HUMNL led volumes chart with just over 31 million shares traded,” it said. Volume on all-share index decreased to 375.36 million from 496.7 million session ago. Value of shares declined to Rs 16.30 billion from Rs 17.63 billion in previous session.

Hum Network was volume leader with 30.92 million shares, followed by K-Electric Ltd with 18.32 million shares and Dewan Motors with 17.86 million shares. Shares of 380 companies were traded on Monday, of which 137 registered an increase, 223 recorded fall while 20 remained unchanged. Meanwhile, Asian shares started week by rallying two-year highs on Monday, buoyed by China’s strongest measures yet to address its property crisis and by expectations for global rate cuts within weeks, while dollar steadied after weekly drop. Brent crude futures touched one-week high of $ 84.14 barrel in early trade, with crash, in heavy fog, of drawing traders’ attention to Middle East.