KARACHI: Stocks remai-ned under pressure for the third day this week with the KSE-100 index sinking by 407.54 points, or 1.31 per cent, to a three-month low at 30,678.97.

Overall, the index shed 7pc in the last eight sessions, while it is down 12pc from its recent peak seen on Feb 3.

The market opened in the positive zone on Thursday and climbed by 273 points on optimism fuelled by Moody’s Investor Service revised outlook on Pakistan’s foreign currency government bond from stable to positive.

However, the euphoria proved to be short-lived as heavy panic-selling pushed the index down to intra-day low by 914 points.

Buying emerged in the last hour mainly from banks which made net purchases of $12.36m, absorbing net sales of $8.02m by mutual funds and $4.44m by companies.

An analyst said: “The global sell-off due to turmoil in Middle East added fuel to the fire at a time when foreigners are net sellers and rollover of futures contracts is under way.”

Analyst Arhum Ghous at JS Capital said the market was volatile and failed to support the 200 days moving average (DMA) with lacklustre volumes.

Cements failed to benefit from the recent discount rate cut while the textile sector remained under pressure on falling exports. Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp commented that the market witnessed another bearish session ahead of quarter end close amid investor panic on foreign selling.

Moody’s upgrade on Pakistan Bond Ratings to positive and major success in military operation could not boost investor sentiments.

“Political uncertainty in Sindh impacted investors’ perception,” Mehanti said, adding that late session interest in oil and fertiliser scrips after recovery in oil prices supported the index to close above session lows.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2015

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