Market watch: Bourse drops as investors adopts cautious approach

KSE’s benchmark 100-share index declines 71 points.

KARACHI: The stock market took a dip on Tuesday as investors either stayed away or took a cautious approach as all eyes were on the Supreme Court proceedings.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index declines 0.52 per cent or 71.14 points to end at the 13,682.99 point level.

Profit-taking started early in the session on rising current account deficit and then carried on as investors stayed cautious amid Supreme Court hearing, said Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation. The Supreme Court after trading hours declared Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani ineligible to hold office. The court said that he had been ineligible since April 26.

Moreover, news regarding diversion of gas from captive power plant to Independent Power Producers created selling pressure in few stocks including cement and textile sector.

Lucky Cement and DG Khan Cement both declined 2.1% during the trading session.

Trade volumes were almost range-bound at 76 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 80 million shares.

Further uncertainty on foreign flows also kept investor sidelined. Foreign institutional investors were buyers of Rs248 million and sellers of Rs214 million worth of shares, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Shares of 334 companies were traded on Tuesday. At the end of the day 77 stocks closed higher, 180 declined while 77 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs2.5 billion.

Second tier scripts dominated volumes. Jahangir Siddiqui and Company was the volume leader with 10.06 million shares gaining Rs0.06 to finish at Rs13.46. It was followed by Karachi Electric Supply Company with 7.08 million shares declining Rs0.31 to close at Rs2.76 and Nishat Chunian Power with 5.53 million shares falling Rs0.05 to close at Rs15.15.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2012.