KARACHI: The stock market remained bearish on Tuesday as the KSE-100 index shed another 24.81 points, or 0.07pc, to close at 33,188.77, with the tone highly uncertain.

The benchmark index, which has lost 3.6pc in the last six sessions, tumbled on Tuesday as well so that at one point it plunged 402 points (1.22pc) to drop below the 33,000 mark. It was only in the last hour that recovery set in with the index making straight to the north, which enabled it to close at a relatively small loss.

Aggressive selling was witnessed in OGDCL and MCB Bank which together have combined weightage of 14pc in the KSE-100 index. OGDCL fell by Rs1.91 and MCB by Rs9.57, which accounted for 100-point decline in the index.

After a day’s pause, foreign-selling erupted on Tuesday with the portfolio outflow at $4.23m. It took the aggregate year-to-date sale by foreigners at $59.80m. Among local participants, mutual funds were major sellers of $9.63m stocks.

Banks bought stocks valued at $8.63m and Individuals bought at dips equity worth $3.63m, which helped to absorb much of the selling by foreign investors and mutual funds.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp. stated that oil stocks were battered after PSO’s first-half earnings fell by 73pc on inventory losses.

Institutional interest was witnessed in blue chips scrips in cement, fertiliser and energy sector on positive sentiments in the wake of CPI inflation data for February at 3.24pc.

Analyst Muhammad Mobeen at JS Global observed that the banking sector was the laggard with MCB Bank falling by 3.2pc and NBP 2.4pc.

The cement sector remained upbeat on expectations of higher despatch numbers, with CHCC rising by 4.1pc, LUCK 3.7pc, DGKC 4pc and PIOC 2pc.

Published in Dawn March 4th , 2015

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