Karachi share market witnessed heavy selling pressure on Wednesday and the KSE-100 index declined by 3.62 percent or 363.65 points to close at 9,678.82 points level, owing mainly to the uncertainty on the political front over the move to impeach President Pervez Musharraf.
"The dense clouds of political uncertainty re-emerged after the meeting of the coalition partners on Tuesday, as it has undoubtedly given birth to yet another suspense story, enough to keep the volatility graph on the higher side", an analyst said. The institutional presence was evident from the fact that certain stocks managed to avoid bottom locks on the closing basis, thereby disallowing a full stretch bear run and the index closed with a loss of 3.6 percent.
The market started in the negative zone and across the board selling pressure forced the index down to hit 9,635.02 points intra-day low level. Trading activity also remained sluggish as the ready market volume declined to 77.931 million shares as compared to 143.435 million shares traded a day earlier. The futures market turnover decreased to 12.095 million shares against 22.463 million shares in the previous session.
The overall market capitalisation declined by Rs 110 billion to Rs 3.028 trillion. Trading took place in 272 scrips, out of which 215 scrips closed in the negative and only 39 scrips closed in the positive while the value of 18 scrips remained unchanged.
NIB Bank was the overall volume leader of the day with 6.918 million shares. However, it declined by Re. 0.52 to close at Rs 8.88. The selling pressure was also witnessed in E&P sector, as PPL and OGDC lost Rs 2.03 and Rs 4.20 to close at Rs 202.20 and Rs 105.25 with 6.264 million shares and 3.784 million shares respectively.
NBP decreased by Rs 5.49 to close at Rs 104.41 with 4.822 million shares. Arif Habib Sec lost Rs 6.15 to close at Rs 116.85 with 2.835 million shares. PTCL decreased by Rs 1.35 to close at Rs 32.45 with 1.921 million shares.
In the cement sector, Zeal Pak, Lucky Cement, Al Abbas Cement and DG Khan Cement declined by Re. 0.10, Rs 1.30, Re. 1.00 and Rs 2.52 to close at Rs 1.55, Rs 72.50, Rs 8.19 and Rs 47.98 with 3.879 million shares, 3.200 million shares, 2.786 million shares and 1.833 million shares respectively.
Wyeth Pak and Al Ghazi Tractor were the highest gainers and gained Rs 78.00 and Rs 11.45 to close at Rs 2800.00 and Rs 240.45 respectively while Nestle Pakistan and PSO were the worst losers and lost Rs 70.00 and Rs 17.40 to close at Rs 1330.00 and Rs 330.60 respectively. Hasnain Asghar Ali at Aziz Fidahusein Securities said that sensitivity graph of uncertainty will keep the local bourses highly volatile, regardless of the attractive valuations.