KARACHI: The stocks were badly battered on Monday with the KSE-100 index showing a repeat of the Friday’s dismal performance.

The index plunged 374.08 points on Monday and closed at two-week low 26,391.41. Volumes also dipped to four month low at 108m shares on Monday.

Oil and gas sector remained under intense pressure throughout the day where 11 out of 12 stocks closed in the red in the lead of the heaviest weighted index stock OGDC. As the giant on the oil and gas started to sink deeper in the red, it pulled the entire market down.

OGDC lost Rs13.55 on Monday; POL was down by Rs3.93; Pakistan Refinery fell by Rs8 and PSO lost Rs8.79. The second highest weighted index stock MCB Bank also dropped by Rs10.93, reflecting loss of 10pc in two days.

The scare of foreign selling was at the heart of the market decline and the figures released by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan did reveal net sale of shares worth $4.23m by foreign investors on Monday.

Many stock brokers and analysts, however, tried to calm the market by extending reassurances that the major foreign holder of OGDC was not offloading the stock.

Ovais Ahsan, analyst at JS Global stated: “The rumour mill continued to churn around the clock as doomsayers had a field day on news that a big foreign instiutional investor is liquidating an emerging markets fund that holds a large chunk of OGDC. Further deliberation though revealed that it was a much smaller sub fund with negligible Pakistan exposure that was actually liquidating.”

Some market experts also attributed the fall in oil and gas stocks to the spectacular gain of rupee by over 6pc against dollar in Jan-March.

Other factors which dented investor sentiments included start of future roll over week and the ‘ides of March’ as the month is historically unfavourable for the market.