Market watch: Index wanders around the neutral line

KSE’s benchmark 100-share index crawled down eight points.

KARACHI: The stock market wandered along the neutral line as lack of triggers and no major corporate announcement pushed investors to the sidelines on Tuesday.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index fell 0.07 per cent or 8.12 points to end at the 11,874.89 point level.

Despite considerable decline in political noise, the court hearing over the NRO case scheduled today (Wednesday) played its part in keeping investors away and glued to developments, said Elixir Securities equity dealer Sibtain Mustafa.

Overall, volumes have lost considerable steam as institutional activity dries up along with jobbers surrendering to one-year long trending market that have failed to make new highs, added Mustafa. Trade volumes continued to decline and fell to the paltry level of 60 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 67 million shares.

Fertilizer stocks closed flattish only with the exception of Engro which closed down 1% while Fatima Fertilizer jumped 2.4% on better fertiliser sales witnessed in December. Among oil stocks, both Pakistan Oilfields and Oil & Gas Development Company witnessed snap rallies but closed with clipped gains of 0.4% each.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs202 million worth of shares, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Attock Petroleum and Attock Refinery gained 0.7% & 2.9%, respectively, over expectations of better half-yearly results scheduled to be announced Wednesday and Thursday.

Jahangir Siddiqui and Company was the volume leader with 6.23 million shares gaining Rs0.27 to finish at Rs5.57. It was followed by Azgard Nine with 4.13 million shares firming Rs0.24 to close at Rs3.4 and Fauji Fertilizer Company with 3.28 million shares losing Rs0.13 to close at Rs186.95.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st, 2012.