KARACHI: On the eve of the IMF executive board’s meeting to approve the first tranche of the $7 billion new bailout for Pakistan, equities experienced continuous selling pressure, extending overnight losses due to rising political uncertainty. Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks closed under pressure amid political noise and a weak rupee. He said that the government’s decision to review and terminate power purchasing agreements with the independent power producers over capacity pay­m­ent issues, surging circular debt and concerns over likely further action on banks for manipulation of dollar rates for the opening of letters of credit contributed to the bearish close. In its review, Topline Securities said the downward drift was primarily driven by profit-taking, par­­t­icularly in key stocks such as Hub Power and En­gro Fertiliser, which resh­­aped the market sentiment. A broad sell-off in Hub Power, Engro Fertiliser, MCB Bank, Pakistan Petroleum, and Bank Alfalah dragged the index down by 400 points. Despite an early rally, the benchmark index extended overnight losses, hitting an intraday loss of 743 points. However, the benchmark index settled at 81,483.64 after shedding 366.86 points or 0.45pc day-on-day. The trading volume fell 7.66pc to 369.62 million shares, while the traded value declined 8.71pc to Rs17.06bn day-on-day. Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included WorldCall Telecom (39.35m shares), Pace (Pak) Ltd (22.58m shares), Hub Power Co (21.24m shares), PIA Hold­ing Company (19.95m shares) and Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim (14.96m shares). The shares registering the most significant incre­ases in their prices in absolute terms were Ismail Ind­u­s­tries Ltd (Rs146.54), Raf­h­an Maize Products Comp­any Ltd (Rs57.50), Sazgar Engineering Works Ltd (Rs25.02), Hallmark Com­p­a­ny Ltd (Rs18.31) and Haleon Pakistan Ltd (Rs13.27). The companies that suffered major losses in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan (Rs52.05), Service Indus­tries Ltd (Rs36.23), Fateh Industries Ltd (Rs18.94), Al-Abbas Sugar Mills Ltd (Rs17.30) and Colgate-Palmolive (Pakistan) Ltd (Rs15.48). Foreign investors remai­ned net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $1.11 million.