KARACHI: The four-day rally at the stock market that saw the KSE-100 index gain 3.7 per cent came to a halt on Tuesday as the index shed 268.87 points, or 0.81pc, to close at 33,035.77.

Profit-taking was witnessed across all sectors as the visit of the Chinese president came to an end and the market’s focus shifted to other pressing issues, including the upcoming by-elections in a sensitive neighbourhood of Karachi.

Volumes declined to 252 million shares of the trading value of Rs13.7 billion compared to 382m shares (Rs20bn) the earlier day.

Analysts at brokerage Topline Securities observed that the investors’ focus was towards futures roll-over positions. Moreover, they were also concerned about the news in a local daily which said that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had recommended the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to collect data about sources of investment.

On Tuesday, foreign investors were net buyers of $7.43m worth stocks, the portfolio inflow with $4m going into banking; $3.7m in food and $1.2m in cement sectors.

Foreign buying has reached $13.84m this month, reducing the foreign portfolio outflow to $117.25m since the beginning of this year.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp stated said stocks closed bearish at the KSE amid institutional profit-taking in overbought stocks across the board.

New measures suggested by NAB for the FBR to check tax evasion in exchange transactions, dismal data on textile sector exports for July-March 2014-15 and cautious activity ahead of Karachi by-election to be held on April 23 played a catalyst role in bearish activity at KSE ignoring strong result announcements in chemical and pharmaceutical sectors.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2015

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