The changing political situation in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul led to uncertainty at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) and on Monday morning, the first session of trading this week, the benchmark KSE-100 index lost 257 points or 0.54pc due to panic among investors. KSE-100 Index closed lower and, for the first time since May, ended below 47,000 at 46,913 points. Trading began on a negative note. Volumes remained subdued but clocked in slightly higher than the session on Friday. During intra-day trading, KSE-100 lost nearly 500 points to hit a low of 46,672 before recovering some of its losses. “Upbeat LSM numbers coupled with an improvement in Pakistan’s rating by the Asia Pacific Group provided some relief to the deteriorating sentiments,” said Topline Securities in its post-market comment. Investors will now keenly follow the geopolitical environment that is set for changes amid the Taliban’s ‘declaration of victory’ and the fleeing of the Afghanistan president. Sectors dragging the benchmark KSE-100 index lower included cement (70.88 points), power generation and distribution (32.58 points), and textile composite (26.77 points). Volume on the all-share index increased from 213.36 million on Friday to 251.80 million on Monday. The value of shares traded during the session jumped to Rs10.14 billion, from Rs9.27 billion on Friday. WorldCall Telecom remained the volume leader with 22.21 million shares, followed by Telecard Limited with 19.38 million shares, and TRG Pak Ltd at 13.72 million shares. Shares of 470 companies were traded on Monday, of which 120 registered an increase, 329 recorded a fall, while 21 remained unchanged.