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KARACHI: The stock market was caught in a tight bear hug as the shares spiralled downwards for the eighth consecutive session on Friday. The KSE-100 index plunged by 119.10 points to close at 32,960.27.
Market capitalisation also stood down a trifle from Rs7-trillion level.
Volumes declined to 122 million shares of Rs6.27 billion value from 140m shares of Rs6.33bn value traded a day ago. Foreigners sold stocks in the heavy sum of $6.4m, taking the year-to-date outflow at $272.71m.
Mutual funds sold $1.78m worth equity to cover their ‘capital protected funds’. Banks and individuals attempted to absorb the sell-off by purchasing shares worth $2.98m and $3.33m, but failed to support the market.
“The rollover week also contributed towards the day’s pressure,” said a worried investor.
Dealers on sales desk at Global Securities observed that retail favourites, SSGC (down 1.94pc), PAEL (up 0.69pc) and TRG (down 0.57pc), topped the volumes chart.
Major supporters of the index were OGDC (1.06pc) and HBL (0.55pc) while main laggards were LUCK (1.98pc) and ENGRO (2.05pc).
“Although the index recovered off its intra-day low yet we expect choppy and volatile days ahead amid thin market turnover,” said an analyst at brokerage Intermarket Securities.
“Lack of positive triggers, fear of foreign selling and Friday being the last day of futures rollover were some of the reasons for selling pressure,” concurred analyst Ovais Ahsan at JS Global.
Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp commented that stocks fell sharply amid cautious activity on political uncertainty and likely impact of Rs40bn new tax measures by the government on the earnings outlook for industries in the auto, fertiliser and oil sectors.
Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2015
