The crisis appeards to have been averted after the resolution of issues between the executive and the judiciary, but the stock market players were bound to follow the public perception about constant fragility as against longevity of the PPP regime. Local portfolio market did maintain an upward trend during the week ending Friday last but volumes of trade were not picking up indicating vulnerabilities and indecisiveness on part of a majority of players. According to the market players, external factors including the politics and economy of the country were to deter the investors away. Particularly the continued political uncertainty especially negative public perception about President Asif Ali Zardari, was not allowing to players to take advantage of the lucrative financial results of the corporate entities. Initially the market players were disappointed of the listed companies performance during the outgoing financial period, but the results pouring in of late for instance that of the HBL and the PSO, have again encouraged the players to buy solid blue chip stocks for the periodical payouts. Pundits were of the view that the gradual improvement in the benchmark was not sufficient to post it as healthy market unless the volumes would not grow. It were only the foreign fund managers or the heavyweight institutional investors keeping the market in an upward direction. Local investors chiefly the small players were not daring to take positions in the given perplexed sentiment owing to instable external environment. Rather than following the positive outlook given by the International Monetary Fund after the last review in Dubai, the players rather focussed the pointing out by the Fund of the required business climate and higher investments as inevitable to maintain the recovery momentum. According to the pundits, the on ground realities have been portraying an entirely different picture of the economy as against the IMFs apparently encouraging view. They explained that the stock markets universally move according to the public perception and the sentiment of the traders. The scenario of security, power crisis, and on top of them the perceived political uncertainty was nowhere even near the environment conducive to long-term investment, lest not talk about the short-term investments in the stock market. A broker requesting anonymity quite rightly observed that the unpopularity level that former dictator Gen (Retd) Pervez Musharraf had earned in his last couple of years, has been matched by the incumbent rulers in their first two years of rule. How could the sentiment of trade get better in the wake of public perception of President Zardaris position getting weaker every day, he rather questioned. That said, the local stock market opened the week under review with a perturbed sentiment on Monday last chiefly due to the then standoff between the executive and the judiciary. It did better after the meeting between Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Chief Justice Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry resolved the judges appointment issue but volumes could not improve as yet. Therefore, the market hardly managed to recover the losses it had suffered on the opening day of the week under review, though it maintained recovery momentum throughout the rest of the week.