KARACHI: In another volatile session on Thursday, the KSE-100 index lost 204.48 points to settle below 50,000. It oscillated between an intraday high of 128 points and a low of 287 points.

A lack of triggers and tense political atmosphere forced investors to tread cautiously.

While most local institutional and individual investors went on a selling spree, the buyers were the unlikely foreign investors who scaled up their net buying to $14.68 million on Thursday from $3.4m a day earlier. Market experts could not fathom if the net buyers were passive MSCI emerging-market funds or individual investors from either frontier or emerging markets.

The volume of shares traded during the day rose 16 per cent to 269m shares and traded value edged higher by 4pc to Rs11.8 billion. Dost Steels Ltd led the volumes list with more than 22m shares traded.

According to brokerage Topline Securities, the laggards on Thursday were Habib Bank Ltd which fell 3pc, DG Khan Cement 2.1pc, Dawood Hercules Corpora­tion 2.4pc, Oil and Gas Development Company 1pc and International Steels Ltd 3.7pc, with overall negative contribution of 197 points.

In contrast, Nestlé Pakistan rose 2pc, Searle Co. Ltd 1.9pc, Hub Power Company Ltd 0.7pc, Bank Al-Habib 1.2pc and ICI Pakistan 2.6pc, adding 64 points to the index.

Profit-taking was witnessed mainly in the banking sector that shed 84 points, cement 50 points and fertiliser stocks 35 points.

However, the exploration and production sector remained resilient despite a sharp drop in global oil prices, analysts said.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said cement and banking stocks remained under pressure on higher tax levies in the federal budget.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2017