Bearish trend continued at the local share market on Thursday and the KSE-100 index lost another 19.49 points to close at the level of 11,135.34 points. The market opened on a positive note and the index hits 11,228.07 points intra-day high level, up 73.24 points, however, the investors opted to offload their holding during mid session and the index dropped into negative zone at 11,110.25 points intra-day low level, down 44.58 points.
Trading activities also further shrank and the volumes at ready counter declined to 86.149 million shares, as compared to 153.970 million shares traded on Wednesday. The overall market capitalisation declined by Rs 6 billion to stand at Rs 3.039 trillion. Out of the total 392 active scrips, 209 closed in negative and 163 in positive while the value of 20 scrips remained unchanged.
Lotte Pakistan PTA was the volume leader with 10.554 million shares and gained Re 0.08 to close at Rs 11.92. Arif Habib Corp increased by Re 0.87 to close at Rs 26.49 with 8.668 million shares. Nishat Mills surged by Re 0.79 to close at Rs 58.31 with 7.768 million shares. Jahangir Siddiqui Co lost Re 0.11 to close at Rs 13.17 with 6.288 million shares.
Fauji Fertiliser Co increased by Re 0.96 to close at Rs 111.58 with 3.840 million shares. NIB Bank lost Re 0.02 to close at Rs 2.99 with 3.343 million shares. Byco Petroleum inched up by Re 0.12 to close at Rs 12.06 with 2.531 million shares. Azgard Nine lost Re 0.20 to close at Rs 11.51 with 2.452 million shares. Nishat (Chunian) declined by Re 0.32 to close at Rs 23.93 with 2.444 million shares. BoP lost Re 0.07 to close at Rs 9.86 with 2.109 million shares.
Unilever Foods and Service Industries were the highest gainers increasing by Rs 50.00 and Rs 10.68 to close at Rs 1090.00 and Rs 224.30, respectively while Unilever Pak and Siemens Pak were the worst losers declining by Rs 40.64 and Rs 28.00 to close at Rs 4138.99 and Rs 1316.00, respectively.
Hasnain Asghar Ali at Aziz Fidahusein Co said that the exceptional performance by the textile stock, inviting huge turnover and registering tremendous gains, gave a market a jump start, that had the colour of support by the financial group, along with whispers of activity in selective stocks of oil exploration and fertiliser sectors allowed the benchmark to register substantial gains, turnover in various low priced stocks did invite short term trades, absence of follow-up to the buying spree in main board stocks, and cued-up sellers on strength mainly in the expensive stocks, allowed stagnation to re-surface.
He said that issues on economic and financial fronts, mainly linked to impact of implementation of RGST on the suffocating economy and incase of non-implementation, impact on the foreign inflows along with threat of rate hike upcoming monetary policy, roll over pressure from November-December futures and non availability of ready board leverage, kept the pressure mounting.