KARACHI: The stock market continued its losing streak for the third consecutive day on Friday, with the benchmark KSE-100 index shedding 584 points, or 1.23 per cent, to close at 46,859.

The market has witnessed a staggering decline of 11.8pc since hitting its peak on May 25.

Dealers, analysts and market participants have continued to underline reasons for the stocks meltdown, including budgetary decisions like the uniform rate of capital gains tax, and withholding tax on dividend and its compulsory payout under certain conditions.

That was followed by outflows instead of the expected heavy inflows following the country’s entry into the MSCI emerging-market index. Lastly, the market is in the grip of uncertainty due to the ongoing Panama Papers case.

The volume of shares traded on Friday fell to 130 million shares from 355m a day earlier. Investors’ disinterest was well reflected in the face of uncertainties as almost one-third of day’s entire volume (40m shares) was traded in just three third-tier stocks — WorldCall, K-Electric and Bank of Punjab (BoP) (right issue).

According to Intermarket Securities, major contribution to the index’s fall came from Habib Bank (HBL) whose share dropped 2.74pc, Oil and Gas Development Company 3.55pc, Pakistan Petroleum 3.91pc, Fauji Fertiliser 3.45pc and United Bank (UBL) 1.49pc, which collectively took away 299 points.

Lucky Cement rose 0.54pc, Fauji Cement 1.4pc and Maple Leaf Cement 1.7pc.

From the sector perspective, shares of energy companies dropped 2.37pc, financials 1.65pc and telecommunication services 0.45pc.

Commercial bank heavyweights including HBL, UBL, Allied Bank and National Bank of Pakistan cumulatively took away 159 points from the index, dealers at JS Global said.

Declining crude prices resulted in sharp fall in oil stocks.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2017