KARACHI: The power of greed took over the fear factor at the stock market on Tuesday where investors took fresh positions in popular shares that were trampled upon by the roaring bears that eroded 1,090 points from the KSE-100 index on the first trading day.

On Tuesday, the market opened in the green and traded in the range of intraday high and low by 377 points and 233 points. The index clawed up by 59.23 points, or 0.13 per cent, to close at 44,491.03.

Investor participation was dismal with traded volume at just 339m shares of value of Rs20.8bn. Except that the outstanding open positions from the roll-over week were satisfactorily settled, other disconcerting issues remained.

Hospitals in Punjab were reported to be overwhelmed by the spike in the new Covid-19 infection cases. The solution to the payment of first tranche to the IPPs and the new refinery policy were nowhere in sight. Investors reacted passively to the replacement of Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh with Hammad Azhar as the finance minister and arguments were heard of whether it was the best time for a change when the government was going to launch Eurobonds.

Rumours of more changes in the federal cabinet to be finalised by Thursday, kept investors perturbed over the impact on policy measures taken in the past several months, analysts said. The rupee’s flight continued against the dollar bringing the parity at the pre-pandemic levels. All was quiet on the political front as the big two parties in the PDM were busy squabbling among themselves leaving the government alone.

Brisk buying was witnessed in the last hour of trading. Some recovery was seen in the technology, refinery, steel and cement sectors which had taken massive beating a day earlier.

Mutual funds stepped in to book profit in the heavy sum of $6.02m, part of which was thought to be to meet redemptions.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2021