KARACHI – The volatile economic outlook as well as the poor security situation helped to sustain the cautious stance of investors. However the index managed to cling on to the psychological mark of 12,000 despite all odds. The range bound behavior of the index was illustrative of the timidness of investors. The trading day was characterised by limited volumes of 77 million shares.
The KSE 100 index closed at a level of 12,045.38 with a gain of 0.13 points, while total volume stood at 34,674,236 along with the total value of 2,156,567,404. KSE-30 index lost 33.84 points to close at a level of 11,769.62, and All Share index gained 4.88 points after closing at 8,394.17 levels.
The top ten volume leaders generated 66 percent of the total traded volume. Fertiliser stocks were traded briskly after news broke on a fertiliser price hike. Furthermore, second tier stocks were among the volume leaders were also indicative of a lack of investor interest.
In case, major selling pressure hit the market it will be difficult for the market to sustain the current level in absence of investor participation, said Bilal Asif at HMFS, adding that it was believed it would be prudent to remain cautious.
Selling pressure on the part of offshore traders forced local investors to remain on the back foot, whose nerves are already jangling due to various seemingly intractable issues. Availability of leverage funding however sustained positive activity, especially in the case of high dividend yielders; the support of ready board leverage products did encourage interest from local participants.
The release of remaining IMF tranches, for reserve support, will indeed allow wide spread activity, thus allowing leverage availability to impact in an improvement in valuations of the main board stocks, said Hasnain Asghar Ali at Aziz Fidahusein, adding that till then quality volume is likely to increase its proportion in overall turnover. This would provide the local bourse desired depth allowing trading activity to be undertaken in front line stocks, he added.
