Friday saw the Karachi share market shedding 69 points because of, what the market observers viewed, the investors’ concern for a possible downgrading of the foreign and local currency bond ratings by the international credit rating agency, Moody’s. Share trading at the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) witnessed an across-the-board panic selling during the second half on the back of major corporate earning announcements that are due next week. “Stocks closed lower amid concerns for downgrade of foreign and local currency bond ratings to Caa1 from B3 by Moody’s on macroeconomic concerns,” said Ahsan Mehanti, a senior stocks analyst and director at Arif Habib Securities. On last trading day of the week, the benchmark 100-share index slid by 69.45 points or 0.48 percent to close at 14,332.29 points against Thursday’s 14,401.74. The intraday high and low stood, respectively, at 14,482.37 and 14,313.87 points. “Panic selling witnessed in the second session in stocks across the board ahead of major corporate earning announcements at KSE due next week,” Mehanti said. The trading turnover marked a slight improvement and stood at 111.919 million shares compared to 109.104 million of the previous trading session. In value terms, however, the share trading set in red zone by dipping to Rs 4.425 billion from Rs 4.629 billion a day earlier. “Institutional support witnessed in blue chip stocks on improvement in Pak-US relation despite concerns for SC action for NRO implementation case against the PM,” the analyst added. The market capitalization also ended up in negative zone and shrank to Rs 3.654 trillion as against Rs 3.671 trillion on Thursday. The free-float KSE-30 index also closed lower at 12,402.31 points against the previous 12,492.03 points, losing 89.72 points. D.G Khan appeared as a volume leader and counted its traded shares at 24.177 million each priced at Rs 43.06 in the opening and Rs 43.49 in closing.
