KARACHI - Selling pressure kept the Karachi Stock Market in red zone and the KSE 100-index lost 72 points or 0.93 percent on Monday as the market showed weakness on delay in monetary policy review while futures market became operational. Moreover, expectation of favourable trade policy announcement failed to change negative market sentiment. Confusion pertaining to delay in monetary policy led to a stagnant opening while declining local currency pushed the benchmark in red territory. Activity was, however, witnessed on dips as it is a popular view that delay has been done in order to provide relief to the economy by declining interest rate substantially. The stock market lost its earlier gained ground with healthy volumes compared to previous months. The recession in volumes of 121m shares as against average volumes of 174m shares may be considered as a start of correction phase. The index lost 72.34 points as top tier stocks lagged from volume leaders board depicting loss of interest. The local bourse was positive in the opening, with a gain of 20.07 points and the benchmark index kept moving in both directions throughout the day. Market closed the day at 7,711.06 points after losing 72.34 points on Monday. Trading activity was depressing as the ready market volume decreased to 122.593 million shares as compared to last trading sessions 193.048 million shares. Total trading value of the stock exchange noticeably moved down to Rs 4.805b from last sessions Rs 8.885b. Market capitalisation also shrunk to Rs 2.275tr as compared to Rs 2.294tr of last trading session, showing a drop of Rs 19b. Out of 406 actively traded scrips at the KSE, only 165 managed to advance, as many as 216 declined and the worth of the shares of 24 stocks remained unchanged. TRG, third tier stock, led the market as a volume leader followed by Maple Leaf, DFML and PPTA. AICL, like in Fridays session kept its upward price momentum and may further itself in the sessions to come. OGDC conceded further ground after hitting the 90,000 level. Highest volumes were witnessed in TRG with the trading of 12.064 million shares on Monday, followed by Maple Leaf with 9.422m shares, DGKC 7.819m shares, Pak Reinsurance 6.374m shares, Adamjee Insurance 5.137m shares, Azgard Nine 4.191m shares, JSCL 3.957m shares, Engro Polymer 3.421m shares namely. Top gainers at the market include Bata Pak, up by Rs29.33/share to close at Rs625 with the trading of only 1 share, Siemens Pak Engineering added Rs21/share, closing at Rs1,015, Treet Corporation gained Rs13.79/share and its value was improved to Rs346.33, Wyeth Pak up by Rs13.63/share to close at Rs1300, Colgate Palm added Rs10.78/share and closed at Rs310.78, Indus Motor gained Rs6.88/share to close at Rs144.55. On the other hand, Rafhan Maize lost Rs36.31/share to close at Rs1,540, Fazal Textile down by Rs15.65/share, closing at Rs299.35, Unilever Pak down by Rs10.62/share and closed at Rs2,004 with a small turnover of only 30 shares, Engro Chemical lost Rs4.24/share and its total value was decreased to Rs137.29, Exide Pak also lost Rs4.24/share to close at Rs155.98, EFU Life down by Rs3.90/share and closed at Rs114.07.