Karachi Stock Exchange ends 15-day fall

LAHORE - Technical correction extended itself on Friday, as share prices closed slightly higher on the back of mutual funds buying, breaking a run of 15 consecutive days slump.

After oscillating around dividing line the KSE-100 index touched 10,455.53 points high but failed to sustain that level because investors preferred to make exit at available rates. Market in last minute again came back in plus column and closed at 10,234.78 level, up by 21.86 points.

Thursday's emergency late session at which brokers bought 4.5 billion rupees of shares from investors desperate to exit the market.

There had been violent protests earlier on Thursday from angry investors who smashed stock exchange windows while calling for a temporary trading halt.

Dealers said that market fundamentals are still weak and political and economic uncertainty is continuing which will not allow any bullish rally to set in. But technical correction of major downward move can extend for another day or two.

Thursday's protest demonstration by small investors produced results and KSE members formed a fund and asked small investors who wants to square their open position to report their selling to that fund. So open position, worth Rs 4 billion were squared up.

This development helped the market start the day by opening just 4.23 points minus at 10208.69 points against the trend of opening at least one to two hundred points minus. Market after negative opening went further down to 10036.14 points to establish today low. But recovery started from that point brought the market in plus column and it started moving up in green territory. After small rise it took again a dip and came back in minus column but recovered immediately.

Traded scrips were 270 in numbers and out of those 128 closed in plus and 133 in minus column while 9 scrips kept last closings. Volumes once again showed healthy improvement and rose to 184.626 million shares. NIB bank remained on top in volumes with traded volumes of 11.708 million shares and closed rupees 0.35 up.   

Free float index opened in minus column and after hitting 11206.41 points low and 11822.70 points high closed finally in minus column at 11407.28 points after shedding 48.96 points. All shares index closed in plus column at 7420.62 points with the gain of 9.34 points.

Hasnain Asghar Ali, an analyst, observed that the market continued to melt, although selective institutional was witnessed in E&P sector. The support was certainly not expected to change the sentiment because the participants have lost confidence in the authorities.

Lahore Stock Exchange closed 30.18 points plus at 3123.49 points much below its high. From 88 traded scrips 32 closed in plus column beating with margin 26 minus closings while 30 scrips kept last closings.

Volumes improved further and with more then 137 % increase went up to 13.335 million shares.