Bears return to stock market; down 22 points

KARACHI - After witnessing bullish trend last week, the Karachi stock market took a downturn on Monday, as the investors chose to book profits due to disagreement shown by the federal petroleum minister over the formula of oil pricing, rumours floating in stock market about inclusion of some members of KSE on ECL and the closure of terminal for around one hour.

The benchmark KSE 100-index sheds 22 points and closed at 15,654.79, after hitting a record 15,676.34 points on the last trading day of previous week.

The KSE-30 share index dropped 30 points and closed at 18,961.51 points.

Analysts said that claim of PSQCA against 24 cement companies, having dues of around Rs350 million has landed this sector in negative zone.

End of deadlock between MQM and PPP and approval of KSE's suggestion by SECP are among some good news for stock market, analysts said.

Analysts said that it is a good time for investors to book profits, as the prices are at record levels on the share market.

The market opened on positive note but selling in cement, fertilizer, banks and energy stocks pushed it to the negative territory.

Analysts said that small investors and leveraged players opted to book profits as the roll over week has started. While the institutions remained positive, they added.

The market trading system on Monday closed for around one hour due to a technical fault. The KSE management extended the market's trading time after the fault. However, it has created doubts among the investors.

The overall market capitalisation slightly declined by Rs 2 billion to Rs 4.788 trillion on Monday. Trading took place in 364 scrips, out of which 173 scrips closed in negative and only 153 scrips closed in positive zone, while the value of 38 scrips remained unchanged.

Among the volume leaders were Maple Leaf Cement, up by 40 paisa at Rs21.65 on 15.44 million; JS Bank, higher by Rs1 at Rs21.95 on 10.074 million; Arif Habib, fell by Rs2.25 at Rs186.25 on 9 million; Nishat Mills down by Rs1.25 at Rs132.80 on 9 million. While trading activity was declined as against the last day trading session as the Ready market volume stood at 225.340 million shares.

Meanwhile, Lahore Stock market witnessed bearish trend on Monday as LSE-25 index lost 36.22 points to settle at 4814.33 points as compared to previous index of 4850.55 points.

The total turnover also witnessed decreasing trend as it remained 16.383 million shares as compared to the previous volume of 24.418 million shares showing a difference of 36.22 million.

Of 119 active scrips traded on Monday, 26 moved up 46 gone down while another 47 equities remained stable.

Mari Gas Company Limited, Pakistan Reinsurance Co,Packages Limited and ICI Pakistan were among the major gainers of the day while Pakistan State Oil Co Ltd, National Refinery Limited, Pakistan Oil Fields Ltd and Attock Refinery Limited led the losers side.

Arif Habib Securities Ltd emerged as volume leader with 2.000 million shares, followed by Maple Leaf Cement Facto with 1.602 million shares and Pervez Ahmed Securities with 1.255 million shares and Callmate Telips Telecom with 1.218 million shares.