January 1, 2002	Tuesday	Shawwal 16, 1422

KARACHI, Dec 31: Leading shares came in for stray covering purchases on the Karachi Stock Exchange on Monday and ended fractionally recovered but the buying support lacked aggressiveness associated with a bull market.

The KSE 100-share index recovered 3.86 points at 1.273.07.

There is, however, no indication whether or not the market, being in a highly-oversold position, could build up a strong new year rally at the current lows.

Despite a strong economic fundamentals, opinions about the future direction of the market are divided owing to war fears and until sanity returns to the current tense border situation, possibility of a major breakthrough appears remote, says a member of the KSE.

The last session of the year though finished on a relatively improved note thanks to moderate year-end buying in some pivotals, the rally was too feeble to lead the market to a new year robust opening.

The sentiment in part was also influenced favourably by predictions that there could be an understanding between India and Pakistani high-ups to avoid war at SAARC meeting to be attended by the president and the Indian prime minister.

However, there was no evidence of last minute portfolio adjustments even on the blue chip counters as deterred by war fears investors generally played safe as was reflected by further decline in the trading volume.

With war clouds hovering on the India-Pakistan borders followed by daily cross-border firing in the heat of threatening statements, investors seem to have no appetite for the falling shares.

“War or no war “this is question being keenly debated among the brokers and stock analysts “but the situation is so confusing that no one is in a position to precisely predict what is going to happen”.

There is, however, a loud whispering that the current threatening posture could finally lead to a “nura kushti” owing to the strong presence of the US forces in the region, says a leading stock broker jokingly.

But some leading stock analysts fear there could be a brief conflict to settle some old issues as both the countries have not ideal economies to back up the war effort. But massive troop movements involving millions of rupee could well mean something more than the threat of war alone, some others say.

Some of the leading investors and financial houses, who still hold a perception of a robust economy after the current tension eases, are claimed to build up long positions in most of the low-priced mega issues, including PSO, PTCL and Hub-Power.

Technically, however, the market was in oversold position and attracted stray on the second-liners, but blue chips stayed weak on renewed selling.

Although gains were modest, the advancing shares dominated the list under the lead of pivotals such as Lever Brothers and Al-Ghazi Tractors, which rose by Rs10 and Rs3 followed by Security Bank, EFU General and Life, Nazir Cotton, Crescent Steel and M Farooq Textiles, which rose by Rs1.40 to Rs1.90.

The interesting feature was that some of the second-liners also came in for active support and rose sharply under the lead of Sazgar Engineering, which was marked up by Rs1.80.

Losses on the other hand were mostly fractional barring Din Textiles, Kohinoor Raiwind, Reliance Weaving, Sitara Chemical, Shell Pakistan and Cherat Paper, which fell by one rupee to Rs1.50.

Trading volume shrank further to 65 million shares from the previous 82 million shares, but gainers forced a strong lead over the losers at 81 to 55, with 37 holding on to the last levels, out of 173 actives.

Hub-Power topped the list of most actives, easy 20 paisa at Rs15.50 on 32m shares, about a half of the total followed by PTCL, unchanged at Rs13.60 on 20m shares, PSO, easy 10 paisa at Rs92.40 on 3m shares, ICI Pakistan, lower 30 paisa at Rs35.30 on 2m shares and Adamjee Insurance, up 25 paisa at Rs29.25 also on 2m shares.

Other actives were led by MCB, firm by five paisa on 1.395m shares, Engro Chemical, steady by the same amount on 1.363m shares, Sui Northern, up 10 paisa on 1.082m shares and Nishat Mills, lower 25 paisa on 0.925m shares.

FUTURE CONTRACTS: Unlike the modest recovery in the ready section forward counter showed mixed trend after the matured December settlements were rung off the board.

Hub-Power was again actively traded, off 24 paisa at Rs15.71 on 3.351m shares followed by PTCL, up five paisa at Rs13.80 on 2.557m shares. Others were traded modestly under the lead of PSO, off 84 paisa at Rs93.15 on 0.167m shares. ICI Pakistan and Nishat Mills fell by 30 and 35 paisa at Rs34.70 and Rs14.15 respectively.

DEFAULTER COMPANIES: Allied Motors came in for stray support at the previous rate of Rs2.85 on 2,000 shares, while Burma Oil remained static at Rs6, without any deal.