The Karachi share market on Wednesday remained under pressure despite healthy results announcement by blue-chip companies as downslide in the global markets following financial problems in Europe left its impact on the bourse.
“Equities remained under selling pressure, even healthy earnings by Engro and HUBCO failed to excite the market, which was probably taking queue from the regional markets witnessing selling, owing to problems in Europe,” said Sara Shahid, an analyst at Elixir Securities. "Locals remain quiet for now until volumes increase,” she said.
The KSE-100 Index remained lacklustre and closed at 10,519.02 points with a loss of 37.37 points, or 0.35 per cent. The KSE-30 Index closed at 10,637.56 points with a loss of 46.57 points, or 0.43 per cent.
Total trades increased to 68,398 against 64,836 of the last trading session. Out of 428 traded companies, 151 advanced, 263 declined and 14 remained unchanged.
Dealers said that the stocks ended lower after selling in the global markets and as local investors stayed on the sidelines because of uncertainty over an International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) loan.
“Selling activity continued on post-result announcement consolidation in the blue-chip scrips. Besides, fall in the international oil prices to around $82, uncertainty in the global capital markets on country ratings downgrade played a catalyst role in the negative activity at the bourse,” said Ahsan Mehanti at Shahzad Chamdia Securities.
“The local bourse witnessed some selling pressure on the back of plunge in the international markets. Furthermore, investors continued to show their interest in the low-priced stocks,” said Farhan Seth, an analyst at Topline Securities.
The pressure in the market was mainly due to pressure in the global markets because of fears about Greece’s financial crisis. Fears that a planned rescue for Greece could stall and extend the financial crisis to other Eurozone countries hit the European markets, which had its impact on the regional markets, the dealers said.
Hasnain Asghar Ali, a dealer at Aziz Fida Husein, said that the market had lost its depth following elimination of leverage product and buyers were hard to find.
Trading activity was better as compared to the last trading session as the ready market volume stood at 118.897 million shares against 110.019 million shares a day earlier. Futures market volume, however, stood at 4.285 million shares against 3.967 million shares during the last trading session.
Highest volumes were witnessed in TRG as it contributed 7.732 million in the dayís turnover and closed at Rs5.81 with a gain of nine paisas, followed by LOTPTA that generated a volume of 7.705 million and closed at Rs11.13 with a loss of 17 paisas. Silk Bank with 7.643 million closed at Rs3.61 with a loss of 10 paisas.