Selling pressure grips KSE

Selling pressure at the Karachi share market continued on Tuesday and the KSE-100 index lost another 217.44 points to close at 10,959.87 points owing to investors concerns over the prevailing law and order situation, mainly in the northern parts of the country and political uncertainty.
The KSE-30 index declined by 355.69 points and settled at 12,416.70 points level. The market started on a negative note and the KSE-100 index hit 10,904.27 points intra-day low level, down by 273.04 points due to heavy selling by local and foreign investors. However, selective buying in late hours supported the index to minimise its intra-day losses. According to the NCCPL data, net foreign selling was recorded at $14.084 million.
The trading activity further improved as the ready market volume increased to 155.031 million shares as compared to 69.929 million shares traded a day earlier. The futures market turnover surged to 14.552 million shares against 7.009 million shares previously.
The overall market capitalisation declined by Rs 67 billion to Rs 3.412 trillion. Trading took place in 263 scrips, out of which 169 scrips closed in the negative and 78 scrips closed in the positive while the value of 16 scrips remained unchanged.
Lucky Cement was the overall volume leader of the day with 12.570 million shares. However it lost Rs 4.33 to close at Rs 82.41. In the other cement sector stocks, DG Khan Cement declined by Rs 2.91 to close at Rs 55.41 while Zeal Pak closed at the same level of Rs 1.80. Arif Habib Sec decreased by Rs 6.49 to close at Rs 137.00.
Fresh buying was witnessed in the E&P sector, as OGDC surged by Rs 2.05 to close at Rs 112.50 with 8.185 million shares. The fertiliser sector also remained under selling pressure as Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim and Engro Chemical declined by Rs 1.56 and Rs 12.43 to close at Rs 29.71 and Rs 236.25, respectively.
In the banking sector, NIB increased by Rs 0.02 to close at Rs 9.70. The NBP lost Rs 6.46 to close at Rs 122.88. Among the other top ten volume leaders, Attock Refinery declined by Rs 10.98 to close at Rs 208.65.
Unilever and Shell Pakistan were the highest gainers and gained Rs 11.68 and Rs 9.94 to close at Rs 2219.99 and Rs 435.00 respectively while Siemens Pak and Jahangir Siddiqui Co were the highest losers and lost Rs 50.00 and Rs 22.98 to close at Rs 1,300.00 and Rs 436.81, respectively.
Ovais Siddiqui, Head of International Sales at First Capital & Equities, said that selling pressure continued at the share market due to investors concerns over the prevailing political and economic situation in the country. Foreign selling was witnessed mainly in the banking sector. However, he said, fresh buying in energy sector stocks supported the index to lessen some of its intra-day losses.