KARACHI: Stocks continued to bleed for the seventh session in a row after foreign investors dumped shares worth $2.65m, broker proprietary trading sold off stocks of $2.65m and risk-averse individuals sought an exit by sale of shares worth $1.14m on Monday.

Insurance companies mopped up much of liquidity. At the close the index showed loss of 256 points, or 0.57 per cent, at 44,818, knocking off another support level of 45,000. In the seven-day losing spree, the index has melted by 2,102 points, or 4.52pc.

The market started positive as witnessed in most previous sessions and stocks started to gain values which carried the index to intraday high by 163 points. It was followed by panic-selling that saw the index succumb to intraday low by 732 points.

Traders said that it was the new investors who enter to dabble in stocks that helped the index lift higher in early trade. However, the strikingly similar pattern every session suggested that some individuals and institutions may be riding out the volatility to make sizeable gains.

Analysts at a major brokerage house said that leveraged positions mostly got a thrashing while resumption of rupee slippage and higher commodity prices were other reasons for the panic-selling in market. Nonetheless, selling subsided by the end of session.

Sectors contributing to the performance included Banks (101 points), refinery (34 points), paper and board (25 points), investment banks (23 points) and pharma (20 points). Stocks that contributed positively to the index included Systems (50 points), FFC (18 points), MTL (8 points), KTML (7 points) and EPCL (7 points). Stocks that dragged the index down included TRG (51 points), HBL (51 points), MEBL (29 points), UBL (18 points) and PSO (16 points). The trading volume remained thin at 301.4m shares, down 19pc from the previous 3689.5m shares. Apart from the small-cap sideboard items, trading was witnessed in some blue chips in fertiliser, E&P, O&GMCs. Cement managed to garner investor interest by the end of session that helped the index pull back.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2021