KARACHI, Nov 18: The share market on Tuesday lacked normal trading interest as investors kept to the sidelines awaiting some positive news about lifting of the ‘floor’ in the backdrop of the IMF bailout package and the Friends of Pakistan Group’s nod to pull the country out from the current financial crisis.

The benchmark KSE 100-share index did not show any change and was quoted at 9,184.09 and so did its junior partner the KSE 30-share index at 9,981.93, but the KSE all-share index was fractionally down by 0.18 points at 6,639.18.

An idea of the investor apathy may well be had from the fact that only seven scrips came in for trading, which is a record, out of which two showed fractional rise, three fell while the other two remained static.

Trading volume again shrank to modest total of 19,660 shares, down from the overnight’s 87,200 shares reflecting the absence of some leading market players.

Floor brokers said investors seemed to have exhausted all the technical options available to them to keep the wheels moving, but most of them now appeared to be tired and preferred to keep to the sidelines.

“A new trading history of falling daily volumes and fractional price changes is being written amid hopes that God will save stock trading from the current terrible sluggishness in future,” analysts said.

Over the years, the turnover figure had declined from the all-time peak of 1.122 billion shares to a few thousand shares, wiping out massive amounts of hard earned money of both small savers and the leading brokers, they added.

What worried investors the most is that there are no signs of the reversal of the prevailing protracted bear-run as leading among them including institutional traders are equally knocked out from the trading arena, some others said.A loud whispering about the removal of the ‘floor’ from under the KSE 100-share index proved false, said an analyst.

“Now eyes are focused on Nov 24,” he added.

However the KSE and SECP officials are silent on the issue and only brokers are taking refuge in successive new dates apparently to satisfy themselves, the analysts said.

Haydery Constructions and Southern Electric posted fractional rise of one and two paisa, while losers were led by Habib-ADM, Gharibwal Cement and M. Farooq Textiles, which were marked down by one paisa to 30.

Southern Electric led the list of actives, steady by one paisa at Rs3.62 on 9,000 shares, Gharibwal Cement, lower 28 paisa at Rs16.38 on 6,000 shares, Habib-ADM Sugar, easy 30 paisa at Rs9.69 on 3,000 and M. Farooq Textiles, easy by one paisa at Rs2 on 500 shares.

Haydery Constructions, firm by two paisa at Rs1.05 on 500 shares, NIB Bank, static at Rs8.45 on 500 shares and Unilever Pakistan, unchanged at Rs2,340 on 160 shares.