Political uncertainty in the country, falling global stocks and continued foreign selling, analysts said, tumbled Karachi equities by 2.8 percent Monday. The 947-point single-day decline appears to be second largest since August 24 when the benchmark index had lost 1,419 points as international equities battered primarily by China's perceived economic turmoil.
Bears kept dominating the market throughout the week's first session as the KSE-100 index ebbed to 32,761.84 in the intraday trade, losing 1,129 points compared to 33,891.08 of Friday last week. "Stocks witnessed record fall post major earning announcements at KSE on concerns for prevailing political uncertainty and volatile global stocks," viewed Arif Habib analyst Ahsan Mehanti.
The sharp fall, Topline analysts said, was attributable to continuous foreign selling. Other negatives, Mehanti cited, were dismal earnings announcements in the oil sector, ongoing protests for tax levies on non-filers banking activity and hit on corporate earnings by OGRA announcement for increase in local gas prices played a catalytic role in bearish sentiment at KSE.
This, Mehanti said, was despite upbeat CPI inflation data for Aug'15 and speculations ahead of State Bank's policy announcement due later this month. Depleting trading turnover at the country's largest bourse is another source of concern for risk-averse stock investors. "Falling volume is also a concern for speculators," said Samar Iqbal of Topline Securities.
Volume on Friday touched 10-week low and today's volume was 218 million shares valuing Rs 10.6 billion which, she recalled, was "lower than average of 286 million shares of value of Rs 13 billion for this year." "Continuous foreign selling also keeping inventors to build portfolios as foreigners remained net sellers of $164m YTD," the analyst said. Monday the offshore investors' net selling amounted to $7.763 million.
The market capital lowered and accumulated to Rs 7.136 trillion. In all, 375 scrips traded only 34 could landed in the green while 332 fell. Rates of nine retained their previous value. The day's volume leader was Dewan Cement with 12 million turnover. The scrip depreciated to Rs 17.01 from its opening rate of Rs 17.61. Other best performing stocks were Askari Bank 10 million, Dewan Motors 10 million, K-Electric 9.8 million, Fauji Cement 8.3 million, Pak Elektron 8 million, Pace Pakistan 7 million, PTCL 6.9 million, TRG Pakistan 6.3 million and Jahangir Siddiqui Company 6.0 million shares. The index heavyweight PPL, OGDC, and POL lost five, four and two percent, respectively, despite stabilising international oil prices. Futures trade dipped to 28.32 million contracts from 33.9 million of last session.