KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday suffered its worst single-day decline in history.

Amid the mad rush to jettison shares, investors saw the equity values hit their lower circuits.

The KSE-100 index plunged by 2,375.97 points, representing the steepest ever decline point-wise in a single day and a loss of 6.59 per cent, the heaviest one day drop in percentage terms, second only to the crash of 7.45pc witnessed on May 20, 2002.

A massive sum of Rs382 billion was wiped off the market capitalisation.

The index settled at 33,685 points at the close of the market, which calculated to a fall of over 20pc since its recent high of 43,200 points on Jan 13.

Many analysts concurred that according to standard definition in financial markets, 20pc plunge, amid widespread negative investor sentiment and fear, puts a boursein the bear territory.In the first 15 minutes of trade, the market capitalisation-based KSE-30 index conceded more than 4pc and as investors watched with batted breath, both indexes continued to slide. The circuit-breaker regulation was triggered and when the KSE-30 index failed to rise over 4pc in the next five minutes, trading was called to a halt. It was for the fourth time in two weeks that trading had to be brought to a halt.But unlike Friday when the market had shown recovery after the cooling period of 45 minutes, the index on Monday continued to slide as investors dumped risky assets and sought the shelter of safe havens.

Suleiman Mehdi, the PSX chairman, affirmed: `All risk management measures were in place, margins were smoothly collected during the period of market halt and there were no defaults.

Asked if the market could take another bear onslaught as seen on Monday, Mr Suleiman said there would scarcely be an issue on the risk management side.

Traders said that mutual funds were the major spoilers of the market as they ditched shares worth a huge $7.43m on Monday. A fund manager suggested that some major funds had to meet large redemptions while money also was switched from equities to the money market.

Since Monday last week, the rupee has lost Rs4.25 or 2.8pc against dollar as it fell to Rs154.253 on March 9 to Rs158.6 on Monday.

Prices of one tola and 10-gram gold plunged by Rs1,850 and Rs1,587 to Rs89,000 and Rs76,303, respectively, on Monday. The prices declined on the back of $60 per ounce fall in the world market to $1,470.