May 11, 2006	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 12, 1427

KARACHI, May 10: Stocks on Wednesday remained under pressure and fell further lower across a broad front but larger fall was averted owing to late short-covering in some of the blue chips. The KSE index showed a fractional fall of five points at 11,572.

Unlike the previous session, the bulk of selling remained confined to overvalued bank and cement shares as a section of investors realised quick gains at the highly inflated levels. Some of the leading auto shares on the other hand maintained their upward drive on reports of higher interim sales.

Essentially, the trading was dominated by conflicting rumours about the sell-off of state units and budgetary proposals.

An idea of highly erratic movements may well be had from the fact the KSE 100-share index hit the session’s peak at 11,660.52 and the lowest at 11,445.43, showing an intra-day gap of 215 points, leading sometime to panic selling and hasty buying.

However, late buying in some of the leading base shares allowed it to finish with a fractional fall of 5 points at 11,571.83 as compared to 11,576.83 a day earlier.

The market should have staged a robust recovery as the opening suggested but the weakness of banks and cement shares on active selling did not allow the bulls even a breathing space to fought back for some technical reasons, brokers said.

“It was again the OGDC day as it pulled the market out from the day’s lows as it did to push it down to new lows a day earlier,” analysts said “but the worst may be over as background news on the oil front was positive after Kuwait’s offer to supply oil at concessional rates.”

OGDC has a weightage of 22 per cent in the index and is capable of setting the market trend on the strength of buying and selling it in a session,” they added.

“All the oil giants including PSO, Pakistan Petroleum, Pakistan Oilfields and OGDC are now in the buying range for quick gains,” says a leading broker adding: “I presume the foreign buying is just around.”

No one could deny the fact that the market is still in an oversold position and once the rumour-mongers are out it will positively respond to its technical demand irrespective of the absence of foreign buying.

Minus signs again dominated the list but some of the leading shares managed to finish with modest to good gains on late buying at the lower levels, Unilever Pakistan and Wyeth Pakistan being leading among them, up Rs15.05 and 25.

Other good gainers included Atlas Insurance, Central Insurance, Gatron, Pakistan Oilfields, HinoPak, Honda Atlas, Indus Motors, Dawood Hercules and Pakistan Hotels, up by Rs5 to 8.65.

Prominent losers were led by Bata Pakistan, Shell Pakistan, EFU Life, Fazal Textiles, Atlas Honda, Millat Tractors, Pak-Suzuki Motors and Arif Habib Securities, off Rs6 to 18.

Trading volume fell to 230m shares from the previous 343m shares as investors played safe in an erratic market as losers maintained a strong lead over the gainers at 236 to 116, with 40 shares holding on to the last levels.

OGDC topped the list of actives, up Rs2.65 at Rs157.25 on 32m shares followed by National Bank, off Rs3 at Rs275 on 26m shares, D.G.Khan Cement, lower Rs3.25 at Rs120.50 also on 26m shares, PTCL, higher by 95 paisa at Rs58.40 on 22m shares, Pakistan Petroleum, easy Rs1.25 at Rs271 on 14m shares, MCB, off Rs2.80 at Rs250.10 on 9m shares.

Lucky Cement, followed them lower Rs3.25 at Rs118.25 on 12m shares, Union Bank, easy 25 paisa on 7m shares and Pak PTA, lower 20 paisa on 7m shares.

FORWARD COUNTER: OGDC was also actively traded on the cleared list and was quoted higher by Rs2.55 at Rs157.90 on 19m shares followed by D.G.Khan Cement, off Rs2.95 at Rs121.30 on 15m shares and National Bank, lower Rs3.50 at 276.50 on also 15m shares.

Among other actives, Pakistan Petroleum and Lucky Cement were leading, off Rs2.70 and 3.30 at Rs271.05 and 118.75 on 12m and 8m shares, respectively.

DEFAULTER COS: Active trading was witnessed on this counter as some of the recent actives came in for profit-selling under the lead of Indus Polyester, and Unity Modaraba, lower 45 paisa and five paisa at Rs6.05 and 0.90 on 0.135 and 0.101m shares.

Crescent Standard Bank and Kashmir Polytex were held unchanged at Rs5.55 and 2 on 0.270m and 0.102m shares, respectively. Others showed modest price changes.