KSE continues downward move as foreign selling hurts

Karachi shares on Tuesday continued their downward spiral as unabated foreign selling dampened market’s sentiments, dealers said.
The KSE 100-share Index shed 161.32 points, or 0.48 percent, to close at 33,571.59 points. KSE 30-share Index fell 65.07 points, or 0.33 percent, to end at 19,826.58 points.
As many as 376 scrips were active; of which 122 advanced, 231 declined and 23 remained unchanged.
The ready market volumes stood at 157.74 million shares as compared to 143.763 million shares in the last trading session.
Analyst Faisal Bilwani at Elixir Securities said equities continued its losing streak to close near intra-day low as locals remained on the sidelines and refused to take advantage of the prevailing weakness.
“Foreign selling is causing a lot of anxiety, while absence of triggers and thin volume complicated matters,” said Bilwani.
Analysts expect the index to test channel support between 33,400-point and 33,500-point levels and investors to track both foreign flows and activity by local capital preservation funds.
They said aggressive selling may cause further dent.
Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Commodities said stocks closed bearish amid cautious activity as global stocks fell on lower commodities prices.
“Sentiments remained weak on concerns over rising bond yields following the neutral policy rate while prevailing foreign outflows kept sentiments weak despite recovery in global oil prices and reports of increase in fertiliser sales,” Mehanti said.
Analyst Ovais Ahsan at JS Global Capital said the bears maintained their grip over the market that continued to tread lower into negative territory as index heavy weights MCB dropped 1.59 percent and Dawood Hercules dipped 1.86 percent.
“The textile sector reacted to exports falling 10.7 percent in October,” said Ahsan.
Nishat Mill was down 1.06 percent.
Engro gained 0.75 percent and its subsidiary Engro Polymer was up five percent.
Searle was down 3.82 percent and Abbot 2.05 percent on the reports that the pharmaceutical sector is not happy with the government’s apathy towards the sector.
K-Electric was down 1.45 percent, but was the volume leader with 18 million of shares.
News about a probe into the allegation of overbilling affected its share value.
Its stock value shed 11 paisas to close at Rs7.50/share. It was followed by TRG Pakistan with a turnover of 16.29 million shares.
Its share value gained 12 paisas to end at Rs41.24/share. Sui Southern Gas Company was the third with a turnover of 15.11 million shares. It shed 22 paisas to finish at Rs30.91/share.