KARACHI, April 27: Stocks on Thursday suffered fresh widespread price erosions on near-panic selling from bargain-hunters and sundry speculators under the lead of leading base shares, but unlike the previous sessions there were not many buyers at falling prices. The KSE index shed 226 points or 1.90 per cent at 11,684.00 points.
Corporate announcements by some of the leading companies, notably MCB and PSO for the current quarter were said to be below market expectations as was reflected by sharp decline of Rs8.60 and Rs5.40 in their share values, respectively, on snap selling by the bargain-hunters.
The KSE 100-share index received a massive battering on panic selling in some of the leading base shares under the lead of PTCL, National Bank and Pakistan petroleum followed by reports of below market interim earnings.
It finished the session with a net fall of 226.37 points or 1.9 per cent at 11,683.72, after hitting the lowest and the highest at 11,616.48 and 11,916.09, respectively.
Although board meetings of National Bank and some other leading companies are due on Friday amid predictions of higher corporate earnings, the market probably failed to digest a sharp decline of 28 per cent in interim after tax profit of PTCL. It has lost Rs6.15 during the post-result sessions, and being one of the leading base shares it dragged down the entire market to a massive fall. Incidentally, the current low of Rs56.95 is the lowest for the last couple of years, as it has fluctuated between Rs57 and Rs104 prior to its sell-off.
“The nine-month PTCL earning after Dubai-based Etisalat took over the management control of the telecom giant in local typical conditions is considered a bad omen, while investors have been expecting a big boost to its share value in the post-takeover trading,” analysts said.
The perception that higher corporate earnings pouring in each session would put the market back on the rails but its highly volatile performance reflects that “some bad news may be around” sans the basic fundamentals, they added.
The overvalued oil giants, notably Pakistan Petroleum and Pakistan Oilfields being index-heavy weights also suffered a sharp fall and so did the cement shares despite the inauguration of Diamer-Bhasha dam on Wednesday, which could increase demand for cement. But duty-free imports worked against them. OGDC, however, held the fort and averted fresh fall.
Arif Habib Securities and Rafhan Maize managed to put on good gains of Rs26.90 and Rs40, respectively. They were followed by Muslim Insurance, Lakson Tobacco, Pakistan Hotels and Pak-Suzuki Motors, up Rs3.10 to Rs10.15. Nestle Pakistan and Wyeth Pakistan fell by Rs25 and Rs92.50, respectively, followed by Adamjee Insurance, EFU General, Shell Gas, Attock Petroleum, Unilever Pakistan, Pakistan Oilfields and Dawood Hercules, which suffered fall ranging from Rs8.50 to Rs18.
Trading volume fell to 219m shares from the previous 346m shares in the absence of buyers and losers held a strong lead over gainers at 260 to 78, with 24 shares holding on to the last levels.
OGDC again topped the list of most actives, lower 75 paisa at Rs162.20 on 32m shares followed by National Bank, off Rs4.50 at Rs268.50 on 21m shares, Pakistan Petroleum, lower Rs7.50 at Rs282.50 on 20m shares, PTCL, off Rs3.15 at Rs56.95 on 18m shares, MCB, easy by Rs8.60 at Rs243.40 on 12m shares, Lucky Cement, lower Rs5.70 at Rs112.60 on 8m shares, and Pakistan Oilfields, off Rs16.05 at Rs673 also on 8m shares.
