Blue chips drag index down by 325 points.

KARACHI -- Bears growAled on the floor of the stock market on Thursday knocking off the KSE-100 index by 325.02 points (0.95 per cent) which settled below the 34,000 level at 33,709.63.

All-index heavy sectors which included exploration and production; banking and fertilisers suffered heavy falls as the investors' interest waned on several pressing issues.

On the economic front, the International Monetary Fund reducing Pakistan's FY21 GDP growth outlook a day ago to 1pc from 2pc earlier, underscoring the need to focus on growth dented investor sentiments. ForeiAgners were sellers of equity worth $2.16 million. IndiviAduals and insurance companies mopped up the liquidity. The rollover week was the major hurdle in building fresh positions.

The index opened in the red and remained negative for almost most of the trading time. In the exploration and production, Pakistan Petroleum; Oil and Gas Development Company and Pakistan Oilfields for the second day finished in the red. This was due to international crude prices coming under pressure over the possibility of supply glut as the demand was feared to stagger because of slowdown in opening up of economies over increasing new cases of Covid-19.

Cement stocks showed...