KSE sheds 193 points on Dubai financial debacle

KARACHI - Psychological impact of Dubai debt problems and global financial crisis resulted in bearish activity at the local bourse on Tuesday as KSE 100-index lost 193 points to close at 9,013 levels.
Heat from Dubai debacle, although psychological, forced the local bourses to melt with a high intensity, wherein due to various economic and internal issues across the board sell-off was witnessed. Shallowness added to the misery, absence of buyers at intervals led to panic sell-off, thus leading to more than 2 percent decline on opening.
However, the stocks likely to manage a double-digit dividend yields, did invite accumulation at discounted rates, thus allowing the index a mild recovery from the days low, the main board stocks unlikely to sustain dividend flows continued to face sell-off by offshore and local participants.
Investors remained concerned over strategic holdings of UAE government on Pakistan bourse in banking, telecom sector despite confirmation by UBL bank on its limited exposure to Dubai world.
Uncertainty over future commodity prices, high leverage cost and renewed security concern on Swat suicide attack on MPA played a key role in negative activity at the KSE.
Increase in local fuel prices is likely to lead to rising trend in inflation expected to increase its pace with anticipated rise in local power tariff, thereby endorsing the worries mentioned in the monetary stance, that clearly gave an idea of no more cut in local interest rate in immediate future, due to tough time ahead, stated analyst Hasnain Asghar Ali at Aziz FidaHusein.
The KSE 100-share index kicked-off the day in red zone, down by 69.61 points and negativity dominated the local bourse throughout the session. Market once dropped to below 9,000 points psychological barrier touching intraday lowest level of 8,985.35. However, after shedding 193.17 points, benchmark index closed the day at 9,013.04 levels. Meanwhile, junior KSE 30-index closed at 9,482.92 points with a loss of 223.56 points.
Trading activity was healthier as the ready market volume stood at 89.836 million shares on Tuesday as compared to last trading sessions 84.660 million shares on Thursday. Total trading value of the exchange further improved to Rs 4.562b against Rs 4.022b of last session.
Market capitalisation squeezed to Rs 2.605tr, showing a solid loss of Rs 53b in just one day. Moreover, out of 350 active scrips at the KSE, only 105 managed to advance, as many as 227 declined and the worth of the shares of 18 cos remained unchanged.
BoP was the volume leader with the trading of 8.615 million shares, followed by Bank Al-Falah with 7.548m shares, OGDC 7.487m shares, PTCL 7.073m shares, JSCL 4.099m shares, UBL 3.562m shares, Nishat Chunian 3.216m shares, AHSL 3.141m shares, JOVC 2.896m shares, MCB Bank 2.863m shares namely.
Bata Pak topped the gainers list, up by Rs44/share to close at Rs970 with the trading of only 47 shares, Sanofi-Aventis added Rs8.05/share and its total value was improved to Rs169.24, Grays of Camb gained Rs7.35/share and closed at Rs154.42, Pak Services up by Rs7.08/share, closing at Rs148.87, Millat Tractor gained Rs4.73/share to close at Rs340.75.
On the other hand, Rafhan Maize lost Rs70/share and its total value was decreased to Rs1,480 with the trading of only 1 share, Unilever Food shed Rs68.80/share to close at Rs1,307.22, Nestle Pak down by Rs46.99/share, closing at Rs1,153.02, Siemens Pak Engineering lost Rs10.90/share and closed at Rs1,340, Indus Dyeing shed Rs8.73/share to close at Rs167.15.