KARACHI, Nov 15: Stocks on Friday maintained firm trend as leading shares tended further higher followed by active follow-up support at the lower levels but unlike the previous sessions the underlying sentiment was a bit shaky owing to conflicting reports about the political deals to form the government.

However, as the National Assembly will be in session from tomorrow, investors hoped that the current deadlock will be resolved in the assembly after mutual consultations among the party leaders.

Although the KSE 100-share index managed to show a fractional rise of 1.64 points at 2,271.60, trading remained terribly slow as was reflected by steep decline in the turnover figure at 115m shares.

PSO showed an erratic price movement ahead of pre-bid meeting as leading investors played on both sides of the fence partly because of weekend considerations and partly awaiting the outcome of pre-bid meeting.

The meeting has evoked a lot of speculative buying in the share of PSO during the last couple of sessions. In the meeting, bidders will seek some clarifications about its receivables from Wapda and KSE and payments to oil refineries leading to sell-off of its 51 per cent shares to the strategic investor.

Already about half a dozen of which have been short-listed to take part in the final bid sometime next month.

Investors also awaited the outcome of today’s crucial final meeting between the PML-Q and the MMA to form a coalition government at the centre and mostly played safe. Whether or not the government has accepted MMA conditions for the cooperation will set the market future trend, brokers said.

“There was, however, no trace of the last couple of sessions’ buying euphoria generated by reports of an agreement between these two major contenders but its denial by the MMA worried investors”, brokers said.

The National Assembly will be in session tomorrow where most of the political battles are expected to fought. But uptill now the situation is unclear despite tall claims by the contenders of power.

PSO remained under pressure ahead of pre-bid meeting as a section of investors took profits to push its price down and then to buy at the lower levels.

Plus signs maintained a modest edge over the minus ones under the lead of Pakistan Refinery and Treet Corporation, which have risen to their career-best level after rising by Rs50 over the last couple of weeks on reports of higher earnings and market talk of bonus shares.

Pakistan Refinery at Rs90.80 and Treet Corporation at Rs136 against their face value of Rs10 are billed as star performance even in a highly volatile market conditions.

Other prominent gainers were led by Bolan Castings, General Tyre, Millat Tractors, Clariant Pakistan, Unilever Pakistan and BOC Pakistan, which rose by Rs2 to Rs9.95.

Losers were led by 4th

ICP, Merit Packaging, Crescent Steel, Dawood Hercules, Fazal Textiles and Pak Reinsurance Co, off one rupee to Rs19.80.

Trading volume suffered sharp contraction at 115 million shares from the previous 249 million shares but gainers held a modest lead over the losers at 110 to 103, with 62 shares holding on to the last levels.

Hub-Power was actively traded, up by 10 paisa at Rs26.90 on 19m shares, followed by FFC-Jordan Fertilizer, higher by 20 paisa at Rs8.20 on 18m shares, Pakistan State Oil, off 55 paisa at Rs192.70 on 15m shares, Pak PTA, lower 20 paisa at Rs7.25 on 10m shares and PTCL, unchanged at Rs21.80 on 7m shares.

Other actives were led by National Bank, easy 10 paisa on 6m shares, Telecard up by 50 paisa also on 6m shares, MCB, steady by 15 paisa on 5m shares, ICI Pakistan, higher by 60 paisa on 4m shares and Japan Power, steady by 10 paisa on 3m shares.

CLEARED LIST: Contrary to its weak performance in the ready section, PSO came in for active support on the forward counter and rose by 10 paisa at Rs194 on 9.577m shares, followed by Hub-Power, higher by 10 paisa at Rs27.05 on 4.829m shares.