KARACHI: Stocks managed to stave off the negative closing for the fourth day in a row by late buying by corporates and ‘broker proprietary trading’ which enabled the KSE-100 index to settle flat with a meagre gain of 12 points, or 0.03 per cent, at 47,135 on Tuesday.

After losses of a huge 666 points in the last three sessions, the market took off to a positive start, but the index soon succumbed to selling pressure which saw the benchmark hit intraday low by 195 points, breaking the 47 resistance to touch 46,928.

The visit of Prime Minister Imran Khan to the city provided investors with hopes of a possible announcement for the economy and market that could provide boost to sentiments. That, however, was not to be. As buying continued mainly in the technology sector, the index rose mid-day to itraday high by 145 points before conceding almost all the gains.

On the economic front, the SBP reported that the remittances sustained over $2bn for the 14th successive month which provided some support to investors’ sentiments. There were no more positive triggers and the flow of financial results was also slow.

Moreover, regardless of an overall decline in pandemic positive cases, the densely populated cities were at risk and the thought continued to haunt investors. The grim situation across the border in Afghanistan was being closely watched with the market unable to shake off the worries of some spillover in the country.

Sector-wise textiles, cement, food and steel traded in the positive region, whereas E&P, power, chemicals and banks contributed to the negative side of the index. The major gainers were Lucky Cement, Engro Corp, Frieslandcampina Engro, TRG and Unity Foods which cumulatively added 74 points to the index while MCB Bank, Colgate Palmolive, Hubco, Dawood Hercules System Ltd cumulatively wiped off 76 points.

Foreign investors picked up stocks worth $0.55m. The trading volume increased 10pc to 370m shares. WorldCall stood on top of the volume leaders with trading in 43m shares.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2021