KARACHI: After about a week of respite, heavy foreign selling of $9.7 million on Thursday pulled down the benchmark KSE-100 index by 165.91 points, or 0.35 per cent.

The index tumbled by more than 700 points in just 45 minutes, half an hour into the prime minister’s appearance before a team investigating corruption allegations against his family.

Earlier, the market hit an intraday low of 239 points, with heavyweight oil stocks coming under pressure due to sinking crude prices on the international market. The market then recovered and rose to an intraday high of 480 points.

The buyers were mainly local ‘individuals’, who absorbed much of foreign selling. In the absence of triggers, the drop in share values was attributed to political uncertainty, an unfavourable budget for the market and low trading interest in Ramazan.

The market trend was pathetic as the right shares of Power Cement, which is quoted at the throwaway price of under 10 paise a share against the par value of Rs10, showed the highest volume of 110m shares.

The share of K-Electric, also quoted at heavy discount to its par value, saw a 17-paisa increase to close at Rs6.94 on re-affirmation by Shanghai Electric Power that it was committed to buying a 66.4pc stake in the power utility.

The volume of shares surged 39pc to 355m shares, with most of the trading in second-tier stocks. Traded value rose 12pc to Rs11.7 billion.

According to Topline Securities, the leading losers on Thursday were United Bank whose share fell 3.3pc, Lucky Cement 2.9pc, Oil and Gas Development Company 1.6pc, Pakistan Petroleum 1.6pc and DG Khan Cement 1.6pc, which together eroded 212 points from the index.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2017