KARACHI: Bears dominated the stock market on Monday with the KSE-100 index taking a steep plunge of 418.61 points or 1.24 per cent to close at 33,213.58.

Investors’ sentiments were dampened on the realisation that the index had suffered a heavy fall of 1,044 points or 2.36pc in last month February.

The market opened on the first trading day of March in the positive but failed to maintain the momentum and saw panic selling by retail investors and institutions, except banks that bought stocks in the net sum of $2.94 million.

Samar Iqbal, VP, Equity Sales at Topline Securities, commented that the stocks fell 1.3pc on Monday due to speculation that foreigners were net sellers in market after $10m net outflow last week.

“Trading value of Rs10 billion on Monday was lower than last three months average daily volume of Rs14.5bn showing that investors were disinclined to trading,” Samar said.

He added that local participants were also facing liquidity shortages as they had already absorbed net selling by foreigners of $109m worth shares in the last three months. Due to bearish spell, February CPI reading of 3.24pc, announced on Mon­day and which were better than market consensus failed to dispel clouds of gloom.

However, the bright spot in the otherwise dismal scenario on Monday was the relatively heavy buying of $4.10m worth stocks by foreigners.

Brokers thought that local participants may take heart and be encouraged by the foreign portfolio inflow, after hefty outflows of $55.57m year-to-date.

Brokerage InvestCap stated in its Monday report that the financial result season is almost over, the market craves for new triggers which the month of March could provide. The lower CPI figure was anticipated to stimulate the market sentiments as it could pave the way for further cut in discount rate.

Published in Dawn March 3rd , 2015

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