KSE Index loses 68 points

The Karachi share market opened on a positive note on the back of a cut in discount rate by the central bank and the benchmark KSE-100 index breached 8,000 crucial level to hit 8,35.71 points intra-day high on Tuesday. However, the index could not continue its upward trend mainly due to foreign selling, which took the index into negative zone.
The foreign investors withdrew over $5.276 million from the equity market. The index finally closed at 7,834.14 points with a net loss of 68.34 points. Trading volume at ready counter, however, increased to 320.331 million shares as compared to 252.880 million shares traded on Monday. The overall market capitalisation declined by Rs 17 billion to Rs 2.338 trillion. Out of the total 355 active scrips, 193 closed in the negative and 152 in the positive while the value of 10 scrips remained unchanged.
Bank Al Falah was the volume leader with 33.670 million shares. However, it lost Re. 0.17 to close at Rs 14.60. In the other banking sector stocks, NIB Bank and NBP declined by Re. 0.13 and Rs 3.79 to close at Rs 6.56 and Rs 81.74 with 23.245 million shares and 10.153 million shares respectively. However, BoP and UBL increased by Re. 0.64 and Rs 2.41 to close at Rs 15.42 and Rs 50.76 with 17.987 million shares and 9.772 million shares respectively.
Fresh buying was witnessed in the cement sector, as Fauji Cement, DG Khan Cement and Lucky Cement surged by Re. 0.60, Re. 0.47 and Rs 2.80 to close at Rs 7.50, Rs 29.43 and Rs 58.84 with 29.400 million shares, 15.910 million shares and 12.175 million shares respectively. Jahangir Siddiqui Co lost Rs 1.73 to close at Rs 40.65 with 12.754 million shares. OGDC declined by Rs 1.16 to close at Rs 76.14 with 7.221 million shares.
Unilever Pak and Siemens Pak were the highest gainers and gained Rs 76.25 and Rs 24.00 to close at Rs 1926.25 and Rs 750.00 respectively while Nestle Pakistan and Wyeth Pak were the worst losers and lost Rs 53.00 and Rs 10.00 to close at Rs 1040.00 and Rs 1380.00 respectively.
Ahsan Mehanti at Shehzad Chamdia Securities said that the selling pressure witnessed at the share market as investors took discount rate cut by 100bps lower than the expectations, which were insufficient to reduce liquidity cost in the capital market. The investors preferred profit taking, as the result announcement by Pakistan Oil Fields was lower than expected.?Fall in international equity markets and continuing foreign selling at KSE remained a major concern while the law and order situation in the city affected the market sentiment negatively.