KARACHI, Oct 28: The share market on Tuesday passed through another lean session as leading investors kept to the sidelines most of the time, while jobbers and day traders played on both sides of the fence amid fractional price changes.

Analysts said talks to ease the liquidity and some technical problems of the brokers in the relevant quarters were going and indications are that next couple of sessions could witness a major change in the market stance, which is still operating under the floor.

“It is not a proper time to go into the merits and demerits of the extension of floor under the KSE 100-share index, but one thing is clear that it allowed the market to absorb the fallout of Moody’s current downgrading of Pakistan bonds from plus-3 to plus-2,” they added.

The status quo being maintained by both the bulls and the bears reflects that both are awaiting some positive developments leading to the removal of the floor as early as possible, some others said.

The KSE 100-share index was again firmly held at the previous level of 9,182.88 as the leading base shares remained dormant at the previous levels for want of support. The KSE 30-share and the KMI 30-share indices also remained static at 10,003.99 and 11,224.18 respectively.

Trading volume, however, showed a modest increase at 0.402m shares thanks to active short-covering in some of the current actives under the lead of Trust Modaraba.

But there was no major change in the price trend as stray business was transacted at the overnight levels in the undervalued shares as jobbers were not inclined to take even a calculated risk.The notable feature was that for the first time after several leans sessions, the high-profile Unilever Pakistan came in for active support at the previous level indicating others blue chips may follow in coming sessions.

A second interim dividend at the rate of 20 per cent, first of the same amount already paid was on the higher side of the market expectations amid hopes that the final may be much higher owing to sharp increase in the interim sales of urea and earnings.

An interim payout at the rate of 20 per cent by the Oil and Gas Development Corporation (OGDC) was also well received in the market, while Atlas Income Fund came out with bonus shares at the rate of 2.75 per cent.

Price changes were fractional and reflected lack of an aggressive support from any quarter, notably financial institutions and funds.

As a result, a total of 21 shares came in for alternate bouts of buying and selling and only Saritow Spinning posted a fractional gain of 20 paisa at Rs2 on 3,500 shares.

Losers were led by Pak Datacom, sharply lower by Rs2.15 at Rs42.15 on just 400 shares, followed by Fidelity Leasing, Sitara Energy and Gharibwal Cement, which suffered fall ranging from 10 to 78 paisa.

Trading volume rose to 0.402m shares from the previous 0.250m shares as investors played safe and did not expand their commitments.

Trust Modaraba led the list of actives, static at Rs1.35 on 0.284m shares followed by Fidelity Leasing, lower 10 paisa at Rs4.10 on 50,500 shares, Sitara Energy, easy by 14 paisa at Rs18.11 on 29,000 shares, Gharibwal Cement, off 78 paisa at Rs17.20 on 8,500 shares and Unilever Pakistan, unchanged at Rs2,340 on 5,000 shares.

Standard Chartered Bank followed them, static at Rs10.20 on 4,000 shares, Atlas Bank, unchanged at Rs6.85 on 3,500 shares, Redco Textiles, static at Re1 on 3,000 shares and Mukhtar Textiles, unchanged at Rs0.53 on 2,000 shares.

FORWARD COUNTER: After weeks of dull activity on this counter owing to leveraged problems, NIB Bank came in for stray support at the previous level of Rs8.50 on 1,000 shares.

DEFAULTER COMPANIES: Both Mukhtar Textiles and Redco came in for stray support but were quoted unchanged on 2,000 and 3,000 shares respectively.