Law, order haunts stock market; down 73 points

KARACHI - Critical law and order situation in Buner and related areas affected the investors sentiment negatively at the Karachi Stock Exchange as the KSE-100 Index shed 73 points on Thursday.
Heavy selling took KSE-100 Index towards red zone as intense security situation in Buner, Dir and subsequent killing of Sufi Mohammeds son by Pakistan Army caused disturbance in business activity at the local bourse.
The KSE-100 Index kicked-off the day with a gain of 54.75 points but unable to maintain the positive stance.
Benchmark Index closed the day at 7,125.66 points, losing 73.21 points. Market touched days lowest level of 7,081.84 points on Thursday.
Low volume, however, continued to dampen the sentiment. Absence of ready board leverage has been forcing even the value buyers to wait for bottom locks for accumulation.
Trading activity was alarming as the ready market volume squeezed to 122.168 million shares on Thursday as compared to last trading sessions 142.021m shares on Wednesday. Total trading value of the market decreased to 5.634 billion rupees as compared to 6.793 billion rupees of last session.
Market capitalisation remained Rs2.121 trillion as compared to Rs2.143 trillion of last trading session. Out of total 348 cos at KSE, only 88 gained value, 244 lost while the worth of the shares of 16 companies remained unchanged.
Once again, Jahangir Siddiqui was the volume leader with the trading of 9.801 million shares. Other noted shares include National Bank with 8.736m shares, Bank Al-Falah 6.827m shares, OGDC 5.872m shares, Pervez Ahmed 5.223m shares, MCB Bank 4.913m shares, Arif Habib Securities 4.910m shares, PTCL 3.933m shares, DGKC 3.884m shares, Lucky Cement 3.671m shares, NIB Bank 3.562m shares namely.
Wyeth Pakistan gained Rs51.30/share and closed at Rs1353.80 with the trading of only 100 shares on Thursday. Other prominent gainer at the Karachi stock market include Treet Corporation, gaining Rs8.84/share, closing at Rs185.72, National Refinery gained Rs5.56/share and closed at Rs199.92, Indus Motor added Rs5.51/share and its value was improved to Rs115.78, GlaxoSmithKline Pakistan gained Rs5.05/share, closing at Rs108.69, MCB Bank added Rs3.65/share and closed at Rs169.94, Attock Refinery gained Rs3.62/share and closed at Rs132.29.
Conversely, Siemens Pakistan lost Rs9/share and closed at Rs850 with the trading of only 200 shares, Sanofi-Aventis lost Rs6.79/share, closing at Rs151.16, Unilever Pakistan lost Rs5.48/share and closed at Rs1947.02, KSB Pumps lost Rs5.04/share and its total value was decreased to Rs102.10, BOC Pakistan lost Rs4.62/share and closed at Rs108.34, Hinopak Motors lost Rs3.98/share and closed at Rs147.76, Mehmood Textile Mills closed at Rs71.21, losing Rs3.74/share, Clariant Pakistan lost Rs3.33/share and closed at Rs99.75.