The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) continued with bearish trend for the second straight day on Wednesday amid surging oil and coal prices globally, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 293.34 points (-0.66 percent) to close at 44,373.23 points. The market opened on a negative note and switched between the red and green zones during the first two hours trading and then plunging in the red zone till the end of the session. The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 510.7 points, showing an intraday high of 44,795.2 points and a low of 44,284.5 points. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 196.75 points (-0.64 percent) to close at 30,460.69 points, while All Share Islamic Index shed 146.89 points (-0.67 percent) to close at 21,650.45 points. A total of 387 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 90 closed up, shares of 277 closed down while shares of 20 companies remained unchanged. Out of 95 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 25 closed up and 70 closed down. The overall market volumes decreased by 81.93 million to 252.76 million shares. Total volume traded for the KSE-100 Index was 123.02 million shares. The number of total trades decreased by 26,333 to 109,954, while the value traded decreased by Rs3.46 billion to Rs10.08 billion. The market capitalisation decreased by Rs52.20 billion. Among scrips, UNITY led the volumes with 25.7 million shares, followed by TELE (20.1 million) and WTL (16.8 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, TELE, WTL, TREET and BYCO, which formed 35 per cent of total volumes. The sector wise, the index was let down by cement with 91 points, textile composite with 36 points, commercial banks with 35 points, technology and communication with 30 points and fertilizer with 24 points. The most points taken off the index were by HBL which stripped the index of 28 points followed by CHCC with 24 points, KTML with 20 points, LUCK with 19 points and ENGRO with 16 points. The sectors propping up the index were oil and gas exploration companies with 36 points, food and personal care products and close–end mutual funds with 3 points each, and real estate investment trust and vanaspati and allied industries with one point each. The most points added to the index were by MARI which contributed 43 points followed by UBL with 22 points, MTL with 9 points, COLG with 5 points and NATF with 4 points. According to experts, the selling pressure remained unabated during the day, courtesy of foreign investors. Eye watering commodity prices, especially coal, have had their bearing on cement and steel sector stocks and had ripple effects on OandGMCs and EandP sectors due to concerns over potential increase in circular debt emanating from rising energy costs. They said that a key conditionality from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for resumption of the programme has been upward revision in electricity tariff, besides an end to subsidies and increase in tax revenues. These measures in part or whole are expected to dent earnings growth of the corporate sector in the coming quarters, which is reflecting on stock prices as well, they opined.