Pakistani biggest Stock Exchange sheds 84 points

KARACHI - The Karachi stock market closed down on Thursday as investors remained cautious ahead of the announcement of the budget for the next fiscal year.
The Karachi Stock Exchange’s 100-share index lost 84.25 points or 0.69 per cent to close at 12,179.81 points on market turnover of 87.31 million shares.
The KSE market capitalization amounted to Rs3,236.77b or $37.67 billion while total ready market value was recorded at Rs3.66 billion or $42.61m, the KSE statistics said.
The KSE future volume stood at 3.25 million shares while its value was at Rs403.02 million at a spread of 5.44 per cent, according to daily market report.
“Bearish activity was witnessed in overbought market after investor remained bearish in scrips across the board
. Limited foreign and institutional interest ahead of federal budget announcement on Friday (today) and uncertainty over tax measures on corporate sector, capital markets played a catalyst role in bearish sentiment at KSE,” said a market analyst.
“Bear-run in various regional and international equity markets, advice of Washington’s think tanks suggesting delay in aid to Pakistan, combined, to invite technical adjustment at the local equity markets, since the decline was led by index heavy weight, oil and gas sector, and duly followed by various high priced stocks, the price decline had a loud impact on the benchmark,” said another analyst. Although, intra-day dips did invite accumulation, budget eve and corporate off-loading, kept the accumulator in a cautious mode, thus keeping the benchmark under pressure during the trading session, the analyst said.
Despite high chances of materialization of “great bargain” on CGT implementation mode, nervousness linked to budget, economic and financial matters, and issues linked to political and geo-political matters, and repercussions of the expected NW operation, nervousness was quite evident, where most of the participations stayed in search of short-term profits, ahead of federal budget, caution therefore stays the call, however reaction is recommended incase of extreme movement (either side) in front line liquid stocks, last trading session of the week, the pre budget session is expected to stay volatile, according to the analyst.