KARACHI: After resisting for the past few sessions, the KSE-100 index finally gave up the 30,000-level as it dropped by 21.93 points or 0.07 per cent on Monday to close at 29,993.87.

Local players yawned all through the session due to absence of triggers that could boost sentiments. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) announcement on Saturday to keep interest rates unchanged was thought to be in line with market expectations.

Politics took the centre stage after the Tehreek-e-Insaf’s successful demonstration in Karachi on Sunday, as investors sensed it a signal of a long-drawn out political impasse in Islamabad. Most institutional and individual investors thought it wiser to wait and watch from the sidelines.

The volume therefore slipped by 23pc to 115 million shares from Friday’s 150m shares with the day traders again trying to make quick gains in the third-tier stocks.

The saving grace for the market was continuous interest of foreign investors who bought $2.03m worth stocks on Monday.

The overseas portfolio inflow of $0.6m went into oil and gas sector.

Analyst Ovais Ahsan at JS Global stated that the market continued to tread cautiously. The SBP announcement since largely in line with expectations was treated “as a non-event” in terms of market impact.

Volume leader Pak Electron was down 1.15pc as the home appliances and electrical goods company announced a rights issue of 35pc to raise paid-up capital to Rs2 billion and cut-down on long-term debts.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp also said that trading remained concentrated in second and third tier stocks amid concerns for huge pending circular debt of Rs230bn in the energy sector.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd , 2014

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