KARACHI, Sept 10: The KSE-100 index fell by 13.77 points in a directionless trading on Monday to close at 15,240.19 points.
Uncertainty over the political and economic situations kept the underlying tone cautious. Most investors remained sidelined and those with heavy portfolio decided to book gains.
The volatility on the political front, with signs that the PM on his first appearance before the Supreme Court on September 27 might decline to write to the Swiss authorities, were disconcerting as the government-judiciary tussle was thought to intensify.
Political commentators said that the country was entering a historic election cycle with key vulnerabilities growing within the economy. The foreign exchange reserves were being closely watched for their depletion.
During the trading session, reports reaching the market that SBP had reduced export refinance rates by 150bps to 9 per cent had little impact on the big beneficiary, the textile sector.
Foreigners bought equity worth $0.68 million on Monday, but individuals were the most aggressive buyers with net buy of $3,86 million. Other institutional investors including companies, banks, mutual funds and ‘other organisations’ went into profit taking.
The news bag had nothing exciting on the economic front. The government on Sunday increased the price of petroleum products, effective from Monday. Yet, the biggest oil marketing company, PSO shares barely moved.
The government borrowing from the country’s scheduled banks rose Rs44 billion to Rs188 billion in the first two months of 2012-13, compared with the same period last year, according to State Bank of Pakistan.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp stated that stocks closed lower post major corporate earning announcements. Concerns for circular debt in the energy sector, slowdown in cement sector dispatches and uncertainty in global stocks and commodities on stimulus hopes affected the investor sentiments.
Equity dealer Samar Iqbal at Topline Securities said that the market remained range bound on the first day of the week as investors remained cautious with increase of political noise. Above expectation DGK Cement’s June result also failed to boost investors’ confidence. Major activity remained skewed towards bottom tier scrips with KESC the highest traded scrip.
Hasnain Asghar Ali, COO at Escorts Capital stated that the session saw across the board profit taking, which was attributed to the torrential rains and relatively volatile political situation. Accumulation in E&P stocks, however, restricted any major fall in the index. Cement stocks however took severe beating that could be on account of technical reshuffle.
PTCL is scheduled to announce annual results on Tuesday, yet the development on ICH sent the stock down by almost 5 per cent.
Among the 316 active issues, 169 ended in the negative territory; 122 in positive and 25 remained unchanged. Volume declined to 208 million shares, from 230 million shares traded last Friday, with the trading value also down to Rs4.914 billion, from Rs4.936 billion. Market capitalisation was lower at Rs3.885 trillion, from Rs3.889 trillion.
The volume leaders saw KESC gain the day's maximum of Re1 to Rs7.45 on 24m shares. It was followed by PTCL which fell by almost the day's limit down by 96 paisa to Rs19.61 on 19m shares; JS Bank gained 44 paisa to Rs6.20 on 16m shares, SSGC was up 5 paisa to Rs22.43 on 14m shares; DGK Cement shed 78 paisa to Rs48.75 on 11m shares as some investors were expecting the company to announce a bonus with the cash dividend on Monday.
Telecard Limited was down 13 paisa to Rs3.32 on 10m shares; Pace (Pak) added 28 paisa to Rs3.46 on 8m shares, Jah Sidd Co was up 26 paisa to Rs14.07 on 8m shares, WorldCall Telecom slid 6 paisa to Rs3.18 on 7m shares and Engro Corporation after initial gains, lost 1.81 by the close of trade to Rs108.09 on 5m shares.