KARACHI: The stock market closed almost flat on Wednesday after a strong intraday rally fizzled out on selling pressure.

The benchmark KSE-100 index, which climbed by 964 points during the day, ended with gains of just 19.36 points, or 0.04 per cent.

The rally could not hold on as investors were spooked by political uncertainty and an unexpected devaluation in the rupee’s value, dealers said.

Investor participation did improve as the number of shares traded during the day rose 7pc to 204 million, however, it was still lower than the 10-day moving average of 236m shares. The value of shares traded jumped 29pc to Rs12.5 billion.

The dominant theme on Wednesday was a drop of more than 3pc in the rupee’s value against the dollar, said analysts at Intermarket Securities. It was rupee’s biggest drop in nine years, according to Bloomberg.

Shares whose values increased were Hub Power Company which rose 5pc, Pakistan Petroleum (PPL) 4.36pc, Oil and gas Deve­lopment Company 2.42pc, Pakistan Oilfields (POL) 4.12pc and MCB Bank 1.96pc, which cumulatively added 265 points to the index.

On the flip side, Habib Bank (HBL) fell 2.94pc, Lucky Cement 2.09pc and Pak Elektron 5pc, taking away 168 points off the index.

From the sector perspective, utilities gained 2.1pc, energy 1.92pc and consumer staples 0.31pc.

According to JS Global Capital Ltd, the exploration and production sector added to its previous day’s gains as oil prices continued their longest winning streak in more than seven years. POL and PPL were the major gainers of the sector.

Mixed sentiment was witnessed in the banking sector as heavyweights HBL (down 2.94pc) and United Bank (down 0.70pc) closed in the red, whereas MCB rose 1.96pc.

Selling pressure was seen in the steel sector as International Steels, International Industries and Amreli Steels lost all dropped by 5pc.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2017