LSE declines by 25.37 points

The share market saw an erratic movement on Wednesday amid lack of interest from buyers staying aloof because of the prevailing political uncertainty but late session pressure forced it to close easier. The LSE-25 index declined by 25.37 points closing at 4,803.65 as against Tuesday's 4,829.02 points.
Since the market lacked interest from potential buyers, volume also squeezed to 43.039 million shares from 33.738 million of the preceding sessions, registering a fall of 9.301 million shares. The market kicked off pleasantly with an aggressive buying activity in provisionally listed the Habib Bank, partially the oil sector and some other scrips.
In second half of the session, profit-taking surfaced placing the index in red zone. Brokers said the market was overbought, thus dipping on technical grounds. Some said investors were uncomfortable to strike fresh deals under the current political situation.
Analysts said market players' hopes were high about the corporate earnings and if the results matched with their wishes, the market would improve. Today, HBL and Honda Atlas Cars dominated the gainers while PSO and Bank of Punjab and some cements stocks were the prime losers.
In the final moments of trading, people took to profit-taking, resulting in across the board equity falls, an analyst from a leading brokerage house said. Today, there was also a wide-ranging downward fluctuation in the cement sector with reports of the decreasing cement prices in the local market, he added.
In past last few sessions, the cement sector had attracted a fresh investment on news of its growing prices, but today (Wednesday) it came under pressure after the news of decrease in its price reached the brokerage houses. The persisting political uncertainty has also affected the confidence of local and foreign investors and forced them to go cautiously about it.
Out of 139 traded scrips, there were 32 gainers against the same number of losers while prices of 75 stayed put. Among prime gainers, Habib Bank soared by Rs 11.00, Honda Atlas Cars Rs 4.50, Pakistan Oilfields Rs 4.20, DG Khan Cement Rs 3.35 and Allied Bank Rs 3.00.
In negative column, PSO lost Rs 5.50, Bank of Punjab Rs 3.00, Lucky Cement Rs 2.85, MCB Bank Rs 2.70 and UBL 2.65. Fauji Cement Company was the volume leader with 9.611 million shares followed by 5.953 million shares.