KARACHI – Pakistan Stock exchange benchmark KSE-100 witnessed a bloodbathof 1,116 points in intra-day trading on Monday over the politicaluncertainty, which was its biggest fall in 2018.

Political uncertainty originated from the Former Prime Minister NawazSharif’s comments on the Mumbai attacks and its trial proceedings causedinvestors to dump and run as the benchmark was closed at 42,498.86 points,with a fall of 2.51% as all the market fundamentals were ignored to makeway for panic- selling among the investors.

In KSE100, 97.48 million shares worth Rs5.94 billion were traded at theexchange. Of the 337 traded scripts, only 35 advanced while 291 declinedand 11 remained unchanged.

The commercial banks sector dominated trading with 20.3m shares traded,followed by cement and chemical sectors with 18.7m and 16.6m shares tradedrespectively.

The market opened in the bearish zone and continued to witness sellingpressure throughout the whole day with panic taking over at the PakistanStock Exchange (PSX).

The index, which has already been the subject of a bearish run in the lastfew weeks over political as well as economic uncertainty, bore the brunt ofNawaz’s statement over the Mumbai attacks, said analysts.

Uncertainty on the political and economic fronts has contributed to thenegative sentiment and is dragging the index down after the Budgetannouncement said an analyst.

The lack of a clear frontrunner among the three main parties is also addingto uncertainty among investors.

A meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) was also held on Mondayto discuss the situation in the wake of Nawaz’s statements.

The National Security Committee (NSC) categorically denied former premierNawaz Sharif’s recent statement on the 2008 Mumbai attacks and unanimouslytermed it “completely false and misleading”.