Bears tighten grip on LSE

The Lahore stocks remained under the grip of bearish move and the equities lost their worth amid slight improvement in transaction volume in line of celebration of President Asif Ali Zardari's oath-taking ceremony.
However, the market could not sustain and slide down following rising differences between the two major political parties while the US threats to extend its operation in tribal ares also contributed to the sluggishness during the last week.
The LSE-25 index declined by 33.25 points to close at 2868.36 against 2901.61 of last week while trading turnover marginally increased to 10.478 million shares as compared to previous volume of 7.686 million shares.
There was no visible change in the market improvement that opened on first day on a negative sign and kept moving down because of J.P. Morgan which showed its concern over the Karachi Stock Exchange freezing at August 27 level. The company also expressed its intention to revise its policy toward Pakistani stock market that made the investors scared who remained on the sideline.
The investors were pinning hope that market would present a bullish rally on account of President Asif Ali Zardari's oath-taking ceremony. However, Pakistan Muslim League (N) had declined the new president's invitation to rejoin the coalition government that upset the investors' mood. Besides the PML(N) decision to sit on opposition benches also aggravated the situation which left serious impact on the stock business.
The investors started waiting for the outcomes of the KSE Board's meeting to be held on next day. The experts were expecting that the Board could reverse its decision to uncap the market.
The market continued day earlier sentiments on the second day and remained range-bound throughout the day. The general body meeting of the Karachi Stock Exchange had endorsed the KSE Board's decision of capping the market. The development on the part of KSE Board and the general body meeting disappointed the investors who did not bother to enter the market.
Another factor that kept the investors away from the market was the continued offloading from the foreign investors, who have been putting their holdings on sale at all level.