KARACHI: The bull run witnessed in the previous five sessions came to a halt on Tuesday as the KSE-100 index dropped by 151 points, or 0.5 per cent, to settle at 31,600.73.

Most of the participants attributed the fall to profitbooking by investors.

Volumes traded stood at 250 million shares of Rs14bn value, compared to 241m shares of Rs13.8bn value in the previous session.

After a day of sell-off, foreigners were net buyers of $4m worth stocks on Tuesday. Analysts observed that the cements stocks, which had rallied in the last few weeks, witnessed some correction with LUCK and DGKC down 2.2pc and 1.4pc, respectively. MLCF, however, gained 2.2pc.PAEL and JSCL closed at their `upper limits` for the sixth consecutive session. Oilstocks recovered due to increase in international crude prices and POL discovery.Book building of Habib Bank`s (HBL) secondary offering began on Tuesday.`As per the latest color of the book, the manager to the offer has stated that ordershave started to materialise, a fund manager said.

Bidding for the stock will continue till Apr 10, 2015.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp stated that the sentiments remained dull at KSE on dismal cement sales data for March 2015 and weak global commodities.

`Institutional pledge for HBL offer for sale through book building, expected fall in banking spreads on declining SBP policy rate and selling pressure in selected overbought scrips across the board played a catalyst role in bearish activity.

Analyst Ahmed Saeed Khan at JS Global stated that the market sentiment remained negative in anticipation of gas tariff hike, which market expected to be announced later in the evening on Tuesday.

Most stocks on the cement, fertiliser and textile sectors remained under pressure.