KARACHI: The panic selling at the stock market gave way to a sobering thought to investors who returned to a relative calm on Thursday, but not before the exchange had witnessed the sixth trading halt in two weeks.

The KSE-100 index closed in the red by 286.22 points (0.94 per cent) at 30,129.83.

Rattled by the early meltdown in regional markets, fear gripped investors at PSX at the opening which saw the KSE-30 crater 917 points (7.43pc) within minutes on heavy selling which triggered the halt providing a 45 minutes cooling and settlement period.

The benchmark index started out with another massive fall of 1,752 points to 28,664, representing the lowest level in five years since March 2015.

Nervous investorsdumped stocks for cash due to rapid increase in new confirmed cases of coronavirus.

Figures provided by the National Clearing Companyof Pakistan in the evening showed that the principal sellers were foreigners who ditched equity worth $5.36m, followed by mutualfunds selling off shares of $2.60m. Local insurance companies, banks and corporates mopped up the stocks that saw the KSE-100bounce back.

Samiullah Tariq, director research and business development at Arif Habib Limited pointed out that thebenchmark index lost 5,931 points (16.4pc) representing the highest 4-day fall pointwise in the history of country`s bourse.

On a positive note, the overnight response of Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan in issuing new directives in regard to uptick rule for April short sales in futures market also appeared to help ease the sell-off. Buying was largely observed in fertiliser, banking and oil and gas sector.

After an initial gain, the cement stocks fell sharply as investors were disappointed by the minimal cut in SBP policy rate which otherwise was expected to assist leverage cement companies.

Scrip-wise, the index was dragged down mainly by Hub Power, lower by 6.3pc, Oil and Gas Development 1.2pc, United Bank 5.3pc, Pakistan Petroleum 1.2pc, Lucky Cement 7.4pc and Pakistan State Oil 1pc.