Market watch: Stock market continues decline amid lack of good news

Benchmark KSE-100 index falls 197.45 points.

KARACHI: The stock market continued its fall through result announcements. Late selling managed to reverse opening gains as players like Hub Power Compay hit lower locks on disappointing results, but financials were able to creep higher.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index fell 0.76% or 197.45 points to end at 25,686.93.

“The index continued its downward course as an early morning recovery failed to sustain on late selling by state institutions like Pakistan State Oil (PSO PA -1.6%), and Engro Corporation (ENGRO PA -2.8%) that dragged index to day’s lows,” said Muhammad Sibtain Mustafa of Elixir Securities.



“Overall, volumes remained in the second and third-tier, highlighting a lack of confidence by institutional investors as they await clarity on the security issue and fast depleting forex reserves.”

Syed Faran Rizvi of JS Global said that it was expected that the market would correct itself towards the 25,000-level.

“United Bank Limited posted above-expected results but was unable to support the market trend,” said Rizvi. “From a technical perspective, market broke its major support trend line and 21 EMA that indicates more pressure in upcoming days. Hence we expect market to correct towards 25,000 level.”

Trade volumes fell to 185 million shares compared with Tuesday’s tally of 225 million.



Shares of 377 companies were traded on Wednesday. At the end of the day, 142 stocks closed higher, 218 declined while 17 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs6.5 billion.

TRG Pakistan was the volume leader with 20.37 million shares, gaining Rs0.83 to finish at Rs11.7. It was followed by Adamjee Insurance with 9.86 million shares, gaining Rs1.23 to close at Rs41.79 and Lafarge Pakistan with 9.84 million shares, losing Rs0.28 to close at Rs10.26.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs65 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2014.

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