KARACHI: Bears overpowered the bulls in the stock market once again on Tuesday, as investors responded to the latest round of monetary tightening, which took the six-month interbank interest rate to double digits.

According to Arif Habib Ltd, the steep rise in the Karachi Interbank Offered Rate (Kibor) will lead to a hefty increase in the finance cost of businesses that have borrowed heavily from banks. The increase in the interest rate will eventually lower companies’ profits as a major portion of borrowing is benchmarked against Kibor.

Investors remained under pressure on the second day of the rollover week and opted for squaring off their positions. In the last trading hour, however, across-the-board selling was witnessed on the stock exchange.

As a result, the benchmark KSE-100 index lost 796.48 points, or 1.74 per cent, to close at 44,948.52.

Market participation increased 1pc to 261.9 million shares while the value of traded shares dropped 11.1pc to $55.8m.

Sectors taking away the highest number of points from the benchmark index included technology and communication (178.28 points), cement (145.36 points), commercial banking (94.39 points), oil and gas exploration (64.08 points) and oil and gas marketing (44.14 points).

Stocks that contributed significantly to the traded volume included TRG Pakistan Ltd (19.63m shares), World­Call Telecom Ltd (17.17m shares), Byco Petroleum Ltd (13.76m shares), G3 Technologies Ltd (13.01m shares) and Hascol Petroleum Ltd (12.57m shares).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index included Bank AL Habib Ltd (14.33 points), EFU General Insurance Ltd (5.73 points), Feroze1888 Mills Ltd (3.28 points), MCB Bank Ltd (3.21 points) and Murree Brewery Company Ltd (3.13 points).

Shares that contributed negatively included Systems Ltd (89.09 points), TRG Pakistan Ltd (80.31 points), Lucky Cement Ltd (37.16 points), Meezan Bank Ltd (36.9 points) and Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (30.28 points).

Stocks recording the biggest declines in percentage terms included TRG Pakis­tan Ltd, which went down 7.5pc, followed by Pioneer Cement Ltd (7.3pc), National Refinery Ltd (6.25pc), Sys­tems Ltd (5.75pc) and Attock Refinery Ltd (5.73pc).

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2021