Across-the-board losses on LSE

Equities registered losses across the board on the Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) amid reduced transaction volume partly on account of technical correction and lacking interest on the part of investors.
The LSE-25 index down by 14.11 points and closed at 2767.46 against 2781.57 of Tuesday, while trading turnover squeezed to 37.506 million shares as compared to 76.328 million shares traded on Tuesday.
Only banking sector helped market resist further declines while cement and petroleum sectors led the market into negative zone.
The market started with healthy note but failed to maintain upward trend mainly on account of selling pressure in cement and petroleum sectors. The market players offloaded their holdings on the pretext of discouraging results of Maple Leaf Cement.
However, majority of the analysts were of the view that a single company could not disturb the market sentiments and it was just a technical correction, said Dr Shahid A. Zia, head of research, Switch Securities, while commenting on the market trend.
The bearish trend was the continuity of Tuesday's week tone while investors were also scared of the alleged news telecast at private television channel that uranium found in Iran belonged to Pakistan.
As a result, they started offloading their holdings to secure their positions, he maintained.
He further said that there were some positive news regarding financial results of corporate sectors whose announcement was delayed till the oath taking ceremony of Shaukat Aziz as Prime Minister, he added.
The government is likely to announce construction of water reservoirs on Independence Day, which would give a boost to the cement sector. Another healthy sign for the stock business is rising trend of the oil prices in the international market and it would leave positive impact on local petroleum companies. Besides, the banking sector is also likely to perform well in coming days, he opined.
Out of a total of 91 active issues, 11 companies improved its worth, 32 registered losses, while 48 remained unchanged.
Union Bank and PICIC Commercial Bank gained Rs 0.80 each, while Faysal Bank and Muslim Commercial Bank improved by Rs 0.70 and Rs 0.50, respectively. Engro Chemical lost Rs 4.20, Maple Leaf Cement declined by Rs 1.40, while PSO and Punjab Modaraba were down by Re 1.00 each.
National Bank was the market leader whose 4.122 million shares changed hands, followed by Maple Leaf Cement with total transaction of 4.114 million shares.