KARACHI: Stocks closed for the second consecutive day in the red as individuals decided to take profit with net sale of $6.28 million worth stocks. The KSE-100 finished with loss of 42.41 points to 30,094.16.

The individual selling was offset by strong buying of shares valued at $8.72m by foreign investors, who pumped $5.5m in the banking and $2.5m in oil & gas sectors.

The downside and upside were limited to just 90 points and 55 points with trading concentrated in mid-tier stocks as only three of the ten top volume leaders were priced above Rs50.

Irfan Iqbal at JS Global observed that the ADB’s lower than expected commitments to projects in Pakistan and an anticipated delay in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) fourth tranche hit sentiments.

The cement sector was in demand, led by Lafarge Cement, which jumped to touch its ‘upper circuit’ and Lucky higher by 2.3 per cent. “Lafarge was the volume leader jumping to a five-year high as investors fell over each other to avail an arbitrage opportunity to sell into an expected tender offer”, said Irfan.

The second day of provisional trading of Engro Powergen Qadirpur Limited saw the stock close at upper limit of Rs47.28 with just 2,500 shares traded.

“Institutional activity was seen in UBL. Investors also bought LPCL in expectation of post acquisition buy back”, said Samar Iqbal at Topline Securities.

On technical charts, KASB Securities observed that the index reflected another failed attempt to break the 30,314 resistance level. “Only a closing above 30,314 could guide the index towards 32,000”, analyst believed, pointing out that key stocks including OGDC, PSO, PPL, UBL, NML and ENGRO also looked weak at current levels.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2014