KARACHI – Friday saw bears dominate share trading at the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) where, analysts believe, falling global stocks amid geopolitical uncertainties in oil-producing Libya and Middle East and reports of a devastating Tsunami in Japan shattered investors’ confidence. The KSE-100 index dwindled 80.54 points or 0.66 percent to close at 12,045.25 points against 12,125.79 points on Thursday. “Bearish activity was seen as global stocks fell amid geopolitical concerns in the Middle East, Libya and news of a massive Tsunami in Japan,” said Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Investments.
The analyst maintained that investors remained bullish throughout the trading session as political uncertainty had waned out following rationalisation of petroleum prices by the government. “Rise in global commodity prices, Brent crude oil above $115 and renewed foreign interest in blue chip scrips played a catalyst role in positive activity at KSE,” Mehnati said. The intraday high and low stood at 12,125.79 and 11,999.07 points respectively, while traded shares at the ready-counter could hardly touch the 67.502 million mark against the previous 103.069 million.
Market capitalisation exhibited a similar trend to stand at Rs 3.239 trillion compared to Rs 3.259 trillion on Thursday. Lotte Pakistan PTA topped the volume leaders list. However, it suffered a loss of 0.21 paisa on each of its 12.711 million traded shares. The closing per share rate of Lotte Pakistan was Rs 15.86.
Future market, however, stayed robust with a turnover of 10.356 million against 5.716 million on the previous day. Trading in future contracts registered a growth of 4.64 million or 81 percent. According to market observers, internal factors like Thursday’s institutional face-off over legality of the chairman of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the country also kept investors away from the highly volatile capital market.
According to Mehnti, investors’ concerns for a rising confrontation between the judiciary and executive on removal of the NAB chairman caused low volumes at the ready-counter. Limited foreign interest and a fall in global commodities were other factors that kept investors on the sidelines throughout the trading sessions despite encouraging reports regarding the much-awaited leveraged products.
