By By our correspondent
Otherwise, panic selling for the second consecutive day had briefly forced the market below this important threshold in the middle of the day.
The KSE 100-share index fell by another 93.79 points or 1.01 per cent and closed at 9,154 points. Parallel-running junior 30-share index shed another 108.03 points or 1.11 per cent and ended at 9,662.20 points.
Ahsan Mehanti at Shahzad Chamdia Securities said intense selling continued as investors remained concerned about continuous foreign divestment from local capital markets. Strong result announcements and rising global commodity prices, however, supported the market near the end of the trading session despite major concerns over security situation in South Waziristan due to military operation and other incidents of law and order, he added.
Investors, however, ignored the clearance of Kerry-Lugar bill by the cabinet and turning of current account ‘deficit’ into surplus for the quarter under progress, another analyst added.
M Sohail at Topline Securities commented that deteriorating security condition and foreign selling were the two major factors being quoted as the main reason behind the seven per cent (approximately 700 points) fall in equity prices in last four trading sessions.
“Investors were getting panicky as they believe that attacks on high profile targets may increase as the Pakistan military has started operation in South Waziristan, the Taliban stronghold near the Afghanistan border. We, however, believe that though both of these concerns were valid but investors were overplaying these concerns,” he added.
Those stocks, which continued to take the brunt of grim situation, consisted of the banking, cement, telecom and securities-cum-investment companies, it was observed. MCB Bank remained the single biggest loser of points in double digits, as this scrip alone included 15.57 points in the key benchmark 100-index. Despite two-way trading, in red and green, the day turnover shrank to 189.18 points from 204.28 million shares changed hands yesterday. Turnover in future market, on the contrary, rose to 2.52 million shares against 1.99 million shares traded a day earlier.
Accordingly, the overall market capitalisation fell further by Rs25 billion and stood at Rs2,653 billion. According to the data released by NCCPL, banks, NBFC, individual investors and local companies were the net buyers though the amount they injected was not of high value.
However, the foreign portfolio investors offloaded shares worth of $2.3 million while local funds managers sold stocks worth $1.7 million. Hasnain Asghar Ali at Aziz Fidahusein said that hostage to the activities of off-shore players, the local equity market after witnessing an initial technical breather amid low volume and range-bound movement, witnessed massive sell-off around midday.
Cautious buyers with low quantum failed to digest the float offered by off-shore players, massive price erosion was quite prominent where initial sell-off found contribution by the local corporate participants. Rumours regarding major change in government set-up added to the local nervousness, thereby, keeping the local equity markets under severe pressure, he added.
Out of total 397 actives, 271 stocks declined, 104 stocks advanced, while the value of remaining 22 stocks remained unchanged.
Highest volumes were witnessed in AH Securities at 16.48 million closing at Rs49.48 with a loss of Rs1.96, followed Pak PTA at 13.64 million closing at Rs5.92 with a loss of 10 paisa, JS Company at 11.40 million closing at Rs35.29 with a loss of Rs1.85, Bank Al-Falah at 11.32 million closing at Rs13.66 with a loss of 43 paisa, and Pakistan Telecommunication Company at 10.05 million closing at Rs19.39 with a loss of 11 paisa.