KARACHI: The stock market opened on a positive note and the KSE-100 rallied to make an intraday high of 237 points Tuesday. But later during the day it caved in under the selling pressure to close below the 43,000 level at 42,811.27 points, showing the day’s loss at 249.44 points (0.58 per cent).

Dealers at Topline Secur­ities posited that the rupee depreciation in the open market in addition to concerns over incessant recent foreign selling triggered profit-taking by investors.

Overall, the volume of shares traded during the day increased 27pc over the earlier day to 585 million shares, while trading value increased by 33pc to Rs17.7 billion. Second- and third-tier stocks ruled the roost on the volume leaders’ board.

Exploration and production stocks faced the brunt of selling pressure as uncertainty prevailed over the Opec members reaching an agreement on production cut. “Opec members Iran and Iraq have expressed their reservations over production cut, whereas Russia has refused to participate in the talks with Opec members in their meeting tomorrow in Vienna,” said Nabeel Haroon at JS Global.

Pakistan Oilfields fell 2.09pc, the Oil and Gas Dev­elopment Company 1.27pc, Pakistan Petroleum 1.03pc and Mari Petroleum 0.28pc. Sui Southern Gas Company closed at its lower limit of 5pc for the second day.

According to Intermarket Securities, a big setback to the upbeat sentiment came from the textile sector, which succumbed to selling pressure after the government announced procedure for providing drawback of local taxes and levies, containing the eligibility criteria and procedure for filing of claims to banks for strict compliance.

Nishat Mills Ltd dropped 4.9pc, Nishat Chunian 4.84pc, Gul Ahmed 4.95pc, Gadoon Textile 4.64pc, Azgard Nine 2.12pc, Kohinoor Textile 3.96pc and Amtex Ltd 6.38pc.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2016