Index loses 51.31 points

The Karachi share market on Wednesday witnessed declining trend despite foreign investors' support, and the KSE-100 index lost 51.31 points to close at 10,590.21 points. Local investors preferred to offload their holdings on renewed concerns over implementation of capital gain tax mechanism on stock exchanges.
After slight positive opening, selling pressure dropped the index into negative zone to 10,530.72 points intra-day low level, down 110.80 points. However, some buying in late hours in select stocks supported the index to minimise the losses. Trading volume at ready counter increased to 145.502 million shares as compared to 137.058 million shares traded on Tuesday.
Market capitalisation declined by Rs 13 billion to Rs 3.003 trillion. Of 410 active scrips, 212 closed in negative and 169 in positive, while the value of 29 scrips remained unchanged. Maple Leaf Cement was volume leader with 17.201 million shares and gained Re 0.39 to close at Rs 5.09. Lotte Pakistan lost Re 0.30 to close at Rs 11.83 with 12.232 million shares. TRG Pakistan inched up by Re 0.08 to close at Rs 5.80 with 7.996 million shares.
BoP and SilkBank declined by Re 0.04 and Re 0.11 to close at Rs 16.84 and Rs 3.98 with 7.492 million shares and 6.998 million shares respectively. PTCL decreased by Re 0.40 to close at Rs 21.54 with 6.058 million shares. Nishat (Chunian) surged by Rs 1.11 to close at Rs 23.61 with 4.931 million shares. Hub Power lost Re 0.02 to close at Rs 34.76 with 3.894 million shares. Azgard Nine declined by Re 0.38 to close at Rs 15.25 with 3.880 million shares. WorldCall Telecom decreased by Re 0.17 to close at Rs 4.81 with 3.646 million shares.
Unilever Pakistan and Rafhan Maize were the highest gainers and increased by Rs 125.00 and Rs 74.50 to close at Rs 3800.00 and Rs 1564.80 respectively, while Bata Pak and Fateh Textile were the worst losers and declined by Rs 15.00 and Rs 12.22 to close at Rs 640.00 and Rs 232.22 respectively. Ahsan Mehanti at Shehzad Chamdia Securities said that selling pressure continued on investors' renewed concerns over implementation of capital gain tax mechanism on stock exchanges.
He said that investors preferred booking profits despite good result announcements of banking and textile sector companies. The rising circular debt in Pakistan energy sector and uncertainty in global capital markets remained among major concerns for investors in the quarter-end result announcement session, he added.