Equities decline

Karachi stocks Monday shed 185 points because of what analysts said select scrips which came under pressure. The KSE-100 index closed at 32,784.94 compared to 32,969.73 points of Friday last week. The trading turnover declined to 166 million shares from the previous 211 million while the traded value also remained low accumulating to Rs 7.93 billion from Rs 9.97 billion of last session. Of the 374 scrips traded, 131 posted gains, 224 lost their worth while 19 stayed unchanged. The market capitalisation slid to Rs 7.02 trillion.
Byco Petroleum led the day''s volume with 22.5 million shares. Other well-performing stocks included Pak Elektron 15.6 million, TRG Pakistan 15.4 million, Lotte Chemical 14 million, Fauji Fert Bin Qasim 7.0 million, JSCL 5.9 million, TPL Trakker 5.4 million, K-Electric 4.3 million, Maple Leaf Cement 4.0 million and Fauji Cement 3.9 million.
Futures trade ended down to Rs 33.5 million contracts against 40.4 million of previous session. "Stocks closed lower amid pressure in select scrips across-the-board on rising political uncertainty and weak earnings outlook," said Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corp. Falling banking spreads, dismal cement sales data for Sep''15 and falling local fertiliser prices played a catalytic role in bearish close ignoring recovery in global equities, he said.
Ahmed Saeed Khan of JS Research said volatility prevailed in Monday''s session as the index continuously juggled between the red and green zone to close -0.56 percent, with supporting volumes of 166mn shares traded today. "On the back of global oil prices dropping in the intraday, some pressure was seen in the E&P sector, although the entire sector remained marginally positive throughout the day, where top performers of the sector were HASCOL (+4.22 percent), BYCO (+1.49 percent) and PSO (+0.81 percent)," he said.
Anticipation of auto policy being approved shortly with special incentives for Large Vehicle Manufacturers kept investors interest in the sector, where GHNL (+5.00 percent) and AGTL (+5.00 percent) hit their upper tiers before midday. "The market was influenced with rumours of some restriction being imposed on exports of cements and subsequent local price war to be initiated shortly that brought negativity to the otherwise fundaments strong sector," Khan said.