KARACHI, Nov 24: The Karachi Stock Exchange remained a desolate place for investors as the ‘floor’ on the market remained firmly in place with no news of a possible breakthrough on Monday.

The three points gain on Friday in the index proved only a stray stir as no visible investor activity was seen in the ready/cash market with the KSE-100 index remaining static during the day at 9,187.10 points on Monday.

The other two indices, the market capitalisation based KSE 30-share index also remained glued to its previous position at 9,981.93 points. The KSE-all share index was slightly pared by 0.21 points to 6,641.16 points.

Investors had pinned hopes on the announcement of some kind of decision on the date of removal of the ‘floor’ from the regulators. But none of that was seen to be forthcoming, which depressed sentiments.

Most market participants thought that the government ought to hasten in the matter of provision of liquidity to the market.“Chronicles of boredom continue as only $12,000 value ended up trading on the system”, said Faisal Bilwani, analyst at Elixir Securities.

He observed that the list of desperate sellers was growing longer by the day as refusal to remove market floor was making matters worse. Negative sentiment and expected substantial correction had forced many to dump their holdings at unthinkable prices.

The analyst contended that local institutional and individual investors were sticking to sit-out wait-out approach as uncertainty over floor removal had barred all from considering 40 per cent and at times 50 per cent discount as value picking.

But the analyst said that one glimmer of hope came from a $3.5-$4bn IMF receipt which was initially cited by KSE board as a precondition to floor removal. Now that the IMF package seems certain, availability and readiness of the proposed market support fund seems provisional, the analyst said.

In all 14 shares came up for trading on Monday, of which two edged higher, while nine sank further down. Three stocks changed hands without any change in value.

Stocks that lost some value included Sitara Energy ex-dividend down by 85 paisa to Rs18.65 and Pak Datacom, ex-dividend 75 paisa easier at Rs45. Other losers for the day were Saritow Spinning down by 69 paisa to Rs1.44, Gharibwal Cement, lower by 22 paisa to Rs17.37, Standard Chartered Modaraba ex-dividend, easy by 30 paisa to Rs8.70.

The gainers included Habib-ADM Ltd up by 22 paisa to Rs9.90 and UDL Modaraba ex-dividend lifting itself up by a paisa to Rs3.07.Volume of shares traded increased to 146,700 shares compared to a volume of just about 81,100 shares on Friday and 110,000 shares the day before.

The highest turnover was recorded in Gharibwal Cement at 41,000 shares, followed by National Asset at 41 paisa on 38,500 shares; Pak Commercial Leasing closing at 55 paisa on 15,500 shares, UDL Modaraba on 13,500 shares to close at Rs3.07; Haydary Construction with trading seen in 12,500 shares at Rs1.03.

DEFAULTER COUNTER: National Asset Leasing which had come in for active trading on Friday also saw activity in 38,500 shares on Monday, to close down three paisa at Rs0.41; Mukhtar Textile was five paisa lower at Rs0.55 and Haydery Construction also showed volume of 12,500 shares conceding two paisa at Rs1.03.