Panic selling witnessed at Karachi Stock Exchange in stocks across the board on rising political noise as political leaders call long march on Jan 14 for a powerful caretaker setup ahead of elections, said Ahsan Mehanti stock analyst here on Wednesday.

Security unrest in the country affected the sentiments. Index recovered after record fall witnessed in early session on hopes for positive outcome of President/PM meeting with religious leaders to settle concerns over implementation of constitution, he added.

At local equity market benchmark KSE-100 share index misplaced 304.88 points or 1.82 percent to close the day at 16,489.99 points as compared to 16,794.87 points of the previous day.

Stock dealer Samar Iqbal said rising political uncertainty in light of announcement of long march in Islamabad resulted in across the board selling. BYCO that rallied in last few sessions closed at its lower limit with 14m shares changing hands. In spite of rally in regional markets and oil prices heavy weight OGDC and PPL also came down forcing the benchmark index to decline by 416 points at one point in time.

KSE-Allshare index down by 235.35 points or 1.98 percent to end the day at 11,664.37 points, KSE-30 share decreased by 219.20 points or 1.60 percent to finish the day at 13,475.74 points while KMI-30 share index lost 409.14 points or 1.41 percent to end the trading session at 28,561.73 points.

Market traded 241.220 million shares after opening at 119.677 million shares and the value of traded share was climb to Rs 5.561 billion from Rs 2.139 billion. Stock capitalisation settled at Rs 4.134 trillion compared to Rs 4.219 trillion of a day earlier.

Bear took the charge of equity market, during the session 364 companies participated in the trading where 326 closed in negative and 31 in positive while the value of 7 stocks remained intact. Nestle Pakistan Ltd was the top loser of the day down by Rs 133.33 to Rs 4600 while Unilever Food was the top price gainer of the day up by Rs 100 to Rs 4400.

Jahagir Siddiqe Company was the volume leader of the day with 15.311 million shares as it closed at Rs 14.77 after opening at Rs 15.58.

Byco Petroleum was on the second position with 13.897 million shares shed by Re 1. It was followed by PIAC(A) with 13.783 million shares off by Re 0.6 to Rs 3.82, Fauji Cement with 12.771 million shares down by Re 0.21 to Rs 6.21 and Band of Punjab with 8.975 million shares decreased by Re 0.79 to Rs 8.92.