KARACHI: Stocks were badly battered on Monday as investors ran for cover ahead of the long Eid holidays.

The KSE-100 index dec­lined by 160.68 points or 0.53pc to settle at 30,314.07 points.

The turnover stood down 52 per cent to 104m shares.

Volume leaders were mainly from the second and third tier stocks. Investors were spooked by the evolving political scenario, where the government called in the army in Islamabad to thwart untoward incidents during the Aug 14 rallies planned by some major political parties.

The market capitalisation-based KSE-30 index fell by 113 points to 21,081.23.

Foreign investors did some cherry picking with fresh inflows of $0.88m, while local institutions were generally sellers in the lead of banks.

Ovais Ahsan at brokerage JS Global stated that the major lagging movers of the day were Lucky Cement, down by 2.6pc, OGDC lower by 0.6pc and Fauji Fertiliser conceding 1.4pc.

The analyst believes that politics would continue to be a key variable after the market reopens post Eid holidays with the Aug 14 march taking centre stage.

According to brokerage Sunrise Capital, selling was witnessed across the board.

Profit-taking was seen in cement sector, where DGKC, FCCL, LPCL, MLCF, CHCC and PIOC depreciated by 1.51pc; 0.10pc; 4.2pc; 3.30pc; 1.16pc and 4.91pc, respectively.

In the oil and gas sector, PSO, OGDC and PPL declined by 0.64pc; 0.91pc and 0.82pc, respectively.

On the chemical sector, Engro and LOTCHEM were up while FFC and EFERT dropped by 1.3pc and 0.51pc.

Banking sector was mixed with MCB, BOP, BAHL down by 0.11pc; 0.65pc and 1.07pc, respectively and UBL, BAFL and NBP up by 4.05; 0.25 and 0.03pc.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2014