Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) Turnover Hits 5mth Low

Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) continued to register dull activities on first trading day of the week with volumes reducing to over 5-mth low and index finally going below psychological barrier of 9,000 owing mainly to deteriorating law and order situation and political uncertainty over NRO.

The benchmark KSE 100-Index declined by 16.21 points or 0.18 per cent to close at 8,992.92 levels, KSE 30-Index shed 24.08 points or 0.25 per cent to end at 9,440.05, whereas KSE All Share Index lost 12.74 points or 0.20 per cent to finish the first trading session of the week at 6,396.22 levels.

Market remained lacklustre as volumes were 23-week low. Moreover year-end also restricted institutions to take fresh positions at the trading counter, he added.
Investor participation remained very low right throughout the day as 73.7 million shares were traded in the overall market which is the lowest of over five months as 42.6 million shares were traded on July 3, 2009 while it is 31 million shares less as compared to a turnover of 103.7 million shares traded Friday.

Trading activities started with a gain of 20 points and after remaining in the positive zone for around two hours where during the initial moments it touched an intra-day high of 9,045 points (+ve 36 points). However investor participation was limited as they were reluctant to take positions over current grim political and security situation in the country. Then after the news of bomb blast in Peshawar and Quetta some negative activities witnessed and index went down into the negative zone where at about 1438 PST it touched an intra-day low of 8,979 points (-ve 29 points) and finally closed near those levels.

Foreign investors also showed limited interest as according to the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited (NCCPL), there was a net foreign buying of $0.6 million Monday. However local companies and banks did a net buying of $3.82 and $2.42 million respectively, while NBFC did a net selling of $6.27 million.

Out of total 396 active issues, 202 declined and 164 advanced while 30 issues remained unchanged.