RECORDER REPORT
KARACHI: The overbought Karachi stocks market descended into a negative territory Wednesday due to what analysts said institutional profit-taking in select leveraged stocks and dismal financial results of some oil heavyweights.
The third day of the "rollover week" saw the KSE 100-share index sliding to 34,386.86 points, down 151.5 points or 0.44 percent. Foreign investors also played cautiously and offloaded their holdings worth $ 3.74 million (net).
"Stocks closed lower amid cautious activity on institutional profit-taking in overbought market," viewed Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corp.
Having peaked to the session's high of 34,625.11 points, the benchmark index came under pressure during the first half on the back of what Mehanti said overbought cement stocks and falling international prices.
Soon the index was seen plunging to the intra-day low of 34,352.14 points.
Inventory losses and the resultant disappointing financial results of energy heavyweights like Attock Refinery Limited (ATRL) and Pakistan Oilfield Limited (POL) kept the oil stocks under pressure throughout the day.
"Dismal earnings in oil sector on inventory losses impacted by falling international oil prices near $45 per barrel played a catalytic role in the bearish activity at KSE," the analyst added.
The "rollover week", he said, was itself a drag on the sentiment-driven index.
Topline's Samar Iqbal also attributed the bearish day to profit-taking amid futures rollover and disappointing results from POL and ATRL.
Declaring a healthy 150 percent payout, she said, the POL's December Rs 22.60 earnings were below expectations.
The ATRL announced a loss of Rs 6.36 in December quarter.
The trading turnover at the ready counter declined by 45 percent to 235 million shares compared to 340 million of the previous session.
The value of traded stakes also nosedived by 51 percent to Rs 15.2 billion from the previous Rs 23 billion.
Of the total 382 scrips traded, 105 went up, 257 went down and 20 remained unchanged.
The market capitalisation perhaps was the only head which ended in the green zone by accumulating to Rs 7.79 trillion compared to Rs 7.83 trillion on Tuesday.
Jahangir Siddiqui Company led the day's volume with 16 million shares. The scrip added 46 paisa to close at Rs 18.36 per share.
Other best performing stocks included K-Electric with 14 million, Maple Leaf Cement 11 million, Bank of Khyber 10 million, Cherat Cement 9 million, Fauji Fertilizer Bin Qasim 8 million, TRG Pakistan 7.8 million, Pak Elektron 7.7 million, Engro Fertilizer 7.2 million and Bank of Punjab 7 million.
The volume on the futures market contracted to 43 million shares from the previous 71 million.
Analyst Mehanti said speculations on strong earnings expected in fertilizer and cement stocks supported the index to close above session lows.
This, he said, was despite a pressure in select stocks across the board in the futures rollover week and weak sentiments following Moody's Investor Services termed ongoing fuel crises as credit negative.
