KARACHI: Stocks re­­mained on a slippery slope on Thursday with the KSE-100 index breaking through the 41,000-point support level.

The index lost 431.34 points (1.4 per cent) to close at the 10-month low of 40,959 points.

During the day, the index fell to the year’s low of 40,686 points but the bulls entered in the last hour to recoup some of the intraday losses of 704 points to close above the 41,000 level.

Trading finally resumed in HBL with volume surging to 8.3 million shares against 7m over the past six sessions combined.

After closing limit down for the past six sessions, HBL lost 4.6pc to close below Rs153 per share on Thursday, having lost 30pc of its value since Aug 28.

According to Topline Securities, index laggards included SNGP down 4.7pc, FFC 2.4pc, BAHL 2.6pc and NBP 3.4pc, taking away 221 points, while Engro 2.5pc, UBL 1.1pc, PPL 0.5pc, TRG 3.6pc and MCB 0.4pc, adding 93 points.

On the sector front, banks washed away 152 points out of which 108 points related to HBL’s decline.

OMC’s shed 86 points as the Sui twins closed near their lower limits on concerns that upward revision in well-head gas prices may inflate the quantum of line losses.

The volume stood at 147m shares with major contribution of 35m shares came from TRG, ANL and HBL. The trading value was unchanged at Rs8.58 billion from Rs8.61bn the previous day.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp observed that stocks closed bearish amid panic-selling on concerns for rising public debt amid record fiscal deficit. Pressure remained in scrips across the board on weak economic data.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2017