KARACHI: After a volatile session, stocks retreated for the third successive session on Wednesday with the KSE-100 index recording a decline by 237.95 points (0.58 per cent) to close at 40,526.81.

At this stage, the index stood at its lowest since closing at 41,688.57 points on Oct 20. Investors were spooked by the rising political noise as the PTI protest drew nearer.

Foreign investors booked profit with sale of $0.98 million worth stocks. Overall volume during the day decreased by 5.4pc to 348m shares from 368 shares traded a day ago while trading value increased by 14pc to Rs13.2bn from Rs11.6bn. Volume leaders were K-Electric (KE) and Bank Of Punjab (BoP) with 60m and 41m shares respectively.

“Crude oil price plunged below $50 a barrel as investors became sceptical regarding Opec members reaching an agreement over production cuts,” stated analysts at Topline Securities.

Major E&P shares ended in the red. OGDC down 1.81pc, POL 2.04pc and PPL 1.11pc.

Fertilisers staged a comeback with EFERT up 0.93pc and FFC 2.22pc. ENGRO closed down 0.43pc amid profit-taking.

Dealers on the Global Securities sales desk stated that the market was partially driven in response to results of disclosure of various companies of which PIOC up 2.74pc and MTL 1.76pc contributing 12 points to the index on account of delivering above expected results, while HUBC fell 2.04pc wiping out 33.08 points owing to lower than anticipated earnings.

On the banking sector HBL was the principal laggard to lose 1.63pc contributing 48 points to the index decline, which analysts tho­ught was likely due to institutional and foreign selling.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti stated that political uncertainty; weak economic outlook and major fall in global equities played a catalyst role in the bearish close at PSX.

Published in Dawn October 27th, 2016