KARACHI, May 15: Stocks on Tuesday recovered from the overnight lower levels as leading shares came in for active follow-up support as the city is limping back to normalcy after last Saturday’s carnage.

But fears about the law and order situation did worry investors as some of the affected parties whose activists were killed are reportedly still tense over the death of their friends.

The market’s positive mood was also well reflected in the KSE 100-share index, which at one stage hit the session’s peak level at 12,499.13 but late selling triggered by reports of a bomb blast in Peshawar, which killed over two dozen persons, pushed it down.

It finally ended with a modest gain of 27.41 points at 12,370.99 as compared to 12,343.58 a day earlier.

Incidentally, the market did not plunge as it mostly does in the similar conditions as the prevailing one in the backdrop of city killing as financial institutions launched a big rescue operation to protect the savings of small and genuine investors.However, investors will take couple of days more to be fully prepared to make fresh bigger commitments apparently anticipating resumption of covering operations at the lower levels by the foreign investors, said analyst Hasnain Asgharali.

“Unpredictable is the behaviour of the KSE bourse having an enormous capacity to absorb massive shocks,” a leading stock analyst Ashraf Zakaria said adding: “Some times it gives in to stray negative news and sometime it ignores the most devastating ones”.

Investors, relying on its inherent strength on certain occasions, ignore massive negative flutters but it could not absorb manipulated selling by the big ones as it did in last year’s June crash.

Although institutional traders played a big role to keep the market in a positive mood some of the bargain-hunters followed them saving the market from a possible crash.

Meanwhile, NIB Bank, in which a Singapore Bank has a big stake, announced on Monday that it has purchased controlling shares of Pakistan Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation (PICIC) at the rate of Rs78 per shares. But share values of the both fell modestly on stray selling.

HinoPak Motors and Unilever Pakistan were leading among the gainers, up by Rs13.80 and Rs20 followed by JS Global, Pak Datacom, Gillette Pakistan, Sanofi-Aventis, National Foods, and Dawood Hercules, Attock Refinery, Sapphire Textiles, and Habib Metrolpolitan Bank, which were quoted higher by Rs3.30 to 8.65.

Siemens Pakistan and Lakson Tobacco, off by Rs68 and Rs14.90 respectively. Other prominent losers included EFU General Insurance, Attock Petroleum, PNSC, BOC Pakistan, ICI Pakistan, Packages, Bata Pakistan, National Refinery and Shell Pakistan, off by Rs3 to 10.35.

Trading volume rose to 283m shares as compared to previous 248m shares and gainers maintained a fair lead over the losers at 188 to 156, with 35 shares holding on to the last levels.

OGDC topped the list of actives, up Rs1.15 at Rs119.20 on 23m shares followed by Nishat Mills, higher by Rs1.70 at Rs128.75 on 20m shares, Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim, lower by 40 paisa at Rs36.85 on 15m shares, D.G.Khan Cement, off Rs1.05 at Rs98.10 on 14m shares, Bank AlFalah, easy by 90 paisa at Rs55.90 on 14m shares, National Bank, up Rs1.85 at Rs240.80 on 11m shares and Askari Bank, higher by 95 paisa at Rs91.95 on 10m shares.

Other actives were led by JS Bank, steady 10 paisa on 12m shares, Pakistan Cement, also up by 10 paisa on 11m shares, and Fauji Cement, unchanged on 9m shares.

FORWARD COUNTER: Nishat Mills led the list of actives on the cleared list, up 90 paisa at Rs128.40 on 6m shares, followed by Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim, 20 paisa at Rs36.85 on 5m shares and National Bank, higher by Rs1.80 at Rs241.50 also on 5m shares.OGDC followed them, up by Rs1.10 at Rs119.75 on 4m shares and Bank AlFalah, off Rs.1.15 at Rs56.05 also on 4m shares.