KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) experienced widespread selling pressure, resulting in significant decline in benchmark KSE-100 Index that closed day lower by 589 points. KSE-100 started session with some positivity, hitting an intra-day high of 78,886.46. However, strong selling pressure took toll on market and pushed it below 78,000. At close, benchmark index settled at 77,980.29, down by 589.30 points or 0.75 percent.

"Equity market closed on negative note, benchmark index remained volatile throughout session," brokerage house Ismail Iqbal Securities said in its post-market report. Selling was witnessed in key sectors including banks, cement, technology, fertiliser, OMCs, autos and pharma. Meanwhile, E&P and power sectors contributed positively.

Volume on all-share index inched lower to 415.17 million from 420.40 million session ago. Value of shares declined to Rs 22.24 billion from Rs 20.72 billion in previous session. Yousuf Weaving was volume leader with 38.07 million shares, followed by WorldCall Telecom with 19.21 million shares and Kohinoor Spining with 13.35 million shares.

Shares of 444 companies were traded on Monday, of which 122 registered an increase, 278 recorded fall while 44 remained unchanged. Globally, Asian stocks edged higher on Monday as holiday in Japan removed one source of recent volatility and investors hunkered down for major US and Chinese economic data for an update on global growth prospects. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.6 percent, led by 1.6 percent bounce in Taiwan.