Worsening law & order derails stock market

LAHORE - The stock market on Wednesday, reacting to the incident of thrashing of ex-minister followed by worsening law and order, turned volatile.
The KSE 100-index was down by 70 points and closed at 15,404.17 level due to panic selling after hovering round its all-time high.
Dealers say that the market trend now depends on ground situation. If law and order situation improves it will push the market up otherwise market will witness another day of negative trading.
They observed that despite heavy clouds of uncertainty the bulls made yet another attempt to drag the KSE 100-index to a new historic level- another intra-day high of 15,598 level- as the excitement linked to foreign inflow reported by NCCPL the Oil and Gas exploration stocks supported the KSE-100. The index, however, faced immense technical resistance around 15590-15596 levels.
Trading activity took place in 342 scrips and out of these 117 closed in plus column against 202 minus closings while 23 scrips remained unchanged. Volumes depleted slightly and 315.423 million shares were traded today.
Earlier, market opened 9.21 points minus at 15464.86 points. After negative opening market came immediately in plus column and went up to 15598.61 points establishing all time intra-day high.
After hitting high market started melting down due to worsening of law and order situation in Karachi and slowly moving down it came to dividing line.
Free float index opened in minus column and after day long trading closed in minus column at 18728.13 points after hitting 19049.09 points high and 18685.06 points low. It lost 158.73 points. All shares index lost 53.43 points and closed at 10954.22 points.
Technically index might continue to face intra day resistance around 15,477-15,483 levels while support continues to stay as 15,190-15,196 levels, caution is therefore advised.
POL topped in volumes with traded volumes of 26.499 million shares and closed rupees 4.50 plus. In intraday trading INIL, PAKRI, DWHL and DLL closed limit up while ANL, AHSL, FFBL and FCSC closed limit down.
Dealers say that initially the movement at the market due to the incoming flow never allowed the bulls to resist and the rumour regarding contents of "fact sheet" to be presented by the finance minister gripped the index, leading to a fresh round of adjustment. The adjustment of almost 1.5% invited a technical recovery backed by the short covering allowed the index to close above psychological level of 15,400.
The Lahore Stock Exchange went down to around 4779 points low but closed partially recovered at 28.66 points minus at 4785.58 points. From 110 traded scrips 11 closed with plus and 53 with minus signs while 46 closed at last level. Volumes improved further and 31.202 million shares were traded. AHSL again kept top position in volumes.