The bearish trend prevailed at the Karachi share market due to security concerns and heavy foreign selling and the benchmark KSE-100 index lost 100.18 points to close at 7,142.42 points level on Thursday. The market remained volatile with the index oscillating between 7,281.96 points intra-day high and 7,088.14 points intra-day low levels mainly due to investors concerns over the prevailing law and order situation in NWFP, analysts said.
The continuous foreign selling ($11.418 million only on Wednesday) also affected market sentiment negatively and the local investors opted to offload their holdings on available margins, they added. However, the foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth 0.608 million dollar on Thursday. The market witnessed dull trading activity as the volume at ready counter declined to 114.060 million shares as compared to 219.535 million shares traded on Wednesday.
The overall market capitalisation declined by Rs 29 billion to Rs 2.127 trillion. Out of the total 341 active scrips, 229 closed in negative and 91 in positive while the value of 21 scrips remained unchanged. Bosicor Pakistan was the volume leader with 15.541 million shares and gained Re 0.90 to close at Rs 8.26. Jahangir Siddiqui Co lost Rs 1.26 to close at Rs 26.54 with 9.075 million shares.
Selling pressure was also seen in the cement sector, as DG Khan Cement and Lucky Cement declined by Rs 1.21 and Rs 2.63 to close at Rs 23.56 and Rs 55.16 with 6.490 million shares and 4.429 million shares respectively.
In the banking sector, Bank of Punjab gained Re 0.31 to close at Rs 12.61 with 5.009 million shares. However, NBP, MCB and Bank Al Falah lost Rs 2.72, Rs 7.10 and Re 0.20 to close at Rs 72.51, Rs 165.67 and Rs 11.84 with 4.386 million shares, 4.022 million shares and 3.572 million shares respectively.
POL declined by Rs 2.73 to close at Rs 147.52 with 4.887 million shares. Arif Habib Sec lost Re 0.77 to close at Rs 26.63 with 3.921 million shares. Millat Tractors and Treet Corporation were the highest gainers and gained Rs 12.96 and Rs 10.23 to close at Rs 272.30 and Rs 214.98 respectively while Nestle Pakistan and Rafhan Maize were the worst losers and lost Rs 50.00 and Rs 30.00 to close at Rs 990.00 and Rs 1,320.00 respectively.
Ahsan Mehanti at Shehzad Chamdia Securities said that the intense selling witnessed as foreign selling continued to affect market sentiment negatively.
Rumours regarding possible taxation on capital markets in the upcoming federal budget, law and order situation in NWFP, decline in international oil price by 15 percent and fall in international equity markets remained a major concern. The IMF call for no reduction in discount rate in upcoming monetary policy announcement continued to hurt investor sentiment in the market, he added.
Comments
Comments are closed.