Losses continue as KSE sheds 63 points

KARACHI - The bear-run continued at the stock market on Wednesday as well as local investors sold shares following foreign selling over the past few days.
The Karachi Stock Exchanges benchmark 100-share index, which opened in green zone with a gain of 39.70 points, ended 0.65 percent, or 62.93 points, lower at 9,603.55 on turnover of 114.87 million shares. The KSE 30-index closed at 10038.87 with a loss of 108.71 points. The KMI-30 index closed at 14189.59 with a loss of 108.86 points, while all shares index closed at 6815.91 with a loss of 43.68 points.
Trading activity was minimal as compared to the last trading session as the ready market volume stood at 146.545m as compared to last trading sessions 161.799m. Future market volume, however, stood at 4.392m shares as compared to 6.250m shares of last trading session.
Market capitalization stood over Rs2.765tr, as total trades decreased to 79,356 as compared to last trading sessions 83,499, while 130 companies advanced, 253 declined and 13 remained unchanged. Highest volumes were witnessed in LOTPTA at 25.091m closed at Rs10.72 with a loss of Rs0.37 followed by PTC at 18.473m closed at Rs18.99 with a loss of Rs0.28, FFBL at 7.251m closed at Rs31.60 with a loss of 0.75.
Bilal Asif, a market expert, said, Most of the top tier stocks moved with the market, whether from banking sector or from index heavyweight E&P sector, and it is believed the index may further weaken in the next few days due to lack of support from corporate news flow. The news that affected the market market sentiment were: Faysal Bank intends to buy RBS; wealth and reconciliation statements made mandatory for non-filers of income tax returns; petrol price hike likely; and Suroor group to acquire MyBank, ATBL, AHBL.
Similarly, Fauji Fertilizer Company Limited (FFC) is scheduled to announce its results for the year ended December 31, 2009 tomorrow, and it is expected that the company is to post net profit in the region of PKR 8,967 million (EPS: PKR 13.21), up 37.4pc YOY.
The polluted horizon contributed by various events including declining trend in revenues and payouts, absence of a user-friendly leverage product, economic woes, declining trend in value of local currency, sticky inflationary numbers, availability of risk free investment products beating yields available in equity markets (that carries substantial risk) political and geo-political issues
Hasnain Asghar Ali, a market analyst, said, the stocks likely to continue growth in payout and revenues however continued and most likely will continue to invite buyers on dips, a cautious pick and choose strategy will prove prudent at least until visibility gets better, unveiling of corporate announcements, their in-depth analysis (to check whether the company has the potential of re-joining growth path after consolidation) will to some extent help in identifying market direction.
The companies that reflected highest increase in their rates were Unilever Pakistan with the increase of Rs 86.67/share to close at Rs 2736.67 and Siemens Pak Eng that gained Rs 44.19/share with the close of Rs 1341.54, while the companies that showed highest decrease in their shares were Rafhan Maize that lost Rs 47.09 to close at Rs 1451.91 and Bata (Pak) with the shedding of Rs 15/share at the close of Rs 835.