KARACHI, Nov 7: The trading volume on the Karachi Stock Exchange fell to record single-session low at 78,500 shares on Friday as investors just marked their time and did not make fresh commitments apparently awaiting the advent of fund buying and removal of the floor.

The previous all-time low volume was 111m shares recorded last month.

The KSE 100-share and KSE 30-share indices remained static at previous levels of 9,183.14 and 10,003.99 points respectively. But the KSE all-share index posted a fresh fractional rise of 0.08 points at 6,639.13.

Analysts said there could be more than one reasons behind the prevailing terrible sluggishness, the chief among them being the investors’ disinterestedness to stay in a market which has surpassed its all previous records both in terms of volumes and price changes.

“No one could fathom the phenomenon of stock trading and the mood of investors, which abruptly changes in the given situations,” they said. “No one is inclined to take even a calculated risk.”

The important feature was that those who are trapped in the settlement of long leveraged positions and steep rise in CFS rates failed to decide how to react to despite a 45-day relief and it has a negative impact on daily turnover figures, they said.

“What seems to have further aggravated the situation was off-the-floor transactions at a massive discount of 30 per cent,” analyst Hasnain Asghar Ali said. “Whenever normal trading is resumed the discounted rates will form the benchmark for future dealings”.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti said the prevailing conditions suggest that even the advent of fund buying and a good bit of institutional support may not allow the market, at least for the near-term, to respond to the current attractive lower levels ensuring higher capital gains because of the general health of the economy.

Price changes were mostly fractional and were confined to most of the second-liners under the lead of Habib-ADM which rose by 40 paisa followed by Al-Zamin Leasing, Gharibwal Cement and Sitara Energy, which posted gains ranging from four paisa to 25 paisa.

Losers were led by Pak Datacom, off Re1 followed by Southern Electric and Saritow Spinning, off one paisa and 27 paisa respectively. Others were traded at the last levels.

Trading volume fell to a record low of 78,500 shares as compared to previous 0.237m shares but gainers held a slight edge over the losers at four to three, with 12 shares holding on to the last levels, out of the 19 actives.

Al-Zamin Leasing led the list of actives, steady by four paisa at Rs1.99 on 24,000 shares followed by Southern Electric, easy by one paisa at Rs3.60 on 12,500 shares, Gauhar Engineering, static at Re1 on 10,000 shares, Gharibwal Cement, up 10 paisa at Rs17.18 on 8,500 shares, Crescent Sugar, unchanged at Rs7.55 on 7,000 shares and Al-Asif Sugar, static at Rs4.14 on 6,500 shares.

Habib-ADM followed them, up by 40 paisa at Rs10.24 on 1,500 shares, Sitara Energy, up by 25 paisa at Rs21.01 on 1,500 shares, J.S. Bank static at Rs10 on 1,000 shares and Saritow Spinning, lower 27 paisa at Rs1.73 also on 1,000 shares.

DEFAULTER COUNTER: Mukhtar Textiles, Indus Polyester and Latif Jute came in for stray buying at the overnight rates of Rs0.53, Rs0.74 and Rs7.10 on 500 shares each.