KARACHI: The stock market went through a stomach-churning rollercoaster ride on Tuesday as the KSE-100 index opened in the red and extended the earlier day’s extensive declines to skid to the intraday low by 594 points.

At this point, value hunters swooped in to cherry-pick at cheap valuations and the index bounced back to recoup much of the losses.

The index finally closed at 48,539.06 points, showing a loss of 116.66 points or 0.24 per cent for the day.

The volume increased 46.6pc to 195 million shares from 133m shares traded the previous day. However, the volume was thin against the 10-day-moving-average of 250m shares. The traded value rose 65.2pc to Rs12 billion.

TRG and SNGPL led volumes with a combined turnover of 26.5m shares. With $23.7m, SNGPL and Lucky Cement collectively led in the traded value.

The oil and gas sector, coupled with banks, weighed down on the market performance. “The recent decline in crude oil prices has not only taken a toll on the oil and gas sector at large, but it has also revised the consensus outlook on inflation, thus weighing down on financials at large,” said analysts at Intermarket Securities.

Most market participants continued to attribute the weak investor sentiments on the unsolved leveraged issues and uncertainties surrounding the outcome of the Panama Papers case.

Weak sales data for February from fertiliser manufacturers and cement, auto and oil marketing companies, along with a rising trade deficit and declining remittances, also added to investor woes.

Pressure to the downside came from PPL 1.5pc, Dawood Hercules 1.92pc, Hub Power 0.8pc, Lucky Cement 0.65pc and HBL 0.39pc, taking away 84 points.

Dealer Arhum Ghous at JS Global said OGDCL, up 0.28pc, closed in the green as the company announced a discovery of hydrocarbons.

In the banking sector, mixed sentiments were observed where HBL shed its value while UBL invited investors’ interest.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2017