KARACHI, Jan 24: Stocks on Thursday came in for renewed selling and finished lower across the board in the absence of covering purchases at the falling prices. The KSE 100-share index fell by 68 points at 13,719.16 amid light trading.

The underlying sentiment remained highly volatile as investors were not inclined to hold long positions on any of the counters and played on both sides of the market.

The KSE 100-share index suffered a fall of 67.87 points at 13,719.16 after having hit the session’s low and high at 13,692.87 and 13,836.57, respectively.

The entire trading activity appears to be a jobbing affair as investors and bargain-hunters sold at the rise and bought at the dips operating on small profits without taking any risk.

A leading analyst said investors are expected to be back in the market as dividend season is just to start and leading investors are awaiting its advent possibly by the next month.

Annual meetings of leading listed sectors, notably banks and oil and some others are due and healthy announcements by most of them, according to market sources, could give the needed push to a hesitant market, they added.

Much of the activity again remained confined to most of the second liners, which have, of late assumed the role of active scrips as leading players were not inclined to go for owing to the prevailing political situation, floor brokers said.

“The prevailing political uncertainty seems to have taken steam out of the market as leading investors are in the search of new modes of investment until sanity returns to the share market,” they said.

How could general investors re-enter the market, which is terribly volatile and rises after each fall and declines after each rise, reflecting the absence of stabilising factors.

In normal trading conditions investors love to have bigger stake at each decline both for capital gains and as long-term investment but fractional price changes in most of the scrips show just marking of time rather than genuine interest.

Leading gainers were led by Adamjee Insurance and Rafhan Maize, up by Rs17.85 and 115 followed by Shell Gas, BOC Pakistan, Clariant Pakistan, Pakistan Services, AKD Capital, and Pakistan Engineering, which posted gains ranging from Rs7.90 to 16.25.

Losers were led by Arif Habib Ltd and JS & Co, off Rs18.90 and 21.20, respectively. Other prominent losers included JS Global, Central Insurance, Dawood Lawrence, National Refinery, Abbott Lab, Dawood Hercules, Berger Paints owing to fire in its production facilities, Mitchell’s Farms, Grays of Cambridge, Pak Suzuki Motors and EFU General and National Foods, which fell by Rs7 to 14.

Traded volume further shrank to 186m shares from the previous 269m shares as losers maintained a strong lead over the gainers at 203 to 113, with 38 shares holding on to the last levels.

Arif Habib Securities came in for active selling and led the list of actives, off by Rs3.20 at Rs175.30 on 24m shares followed by NIB Bank, unchanged at Rs22.05 on 16m shares, Netsole Technologies, sharply higher by Rs6.20 at Rs133.50 on 9m shares, Bank of Punjab, lower by 45 paisa at Rs93.10 also on 9m shares, Pervez Ahmed Securities, easy by 1.15 after the announcement of five per cent cash and 10 per cent bonus shares on 7m shares, Bosicor Pakistan, lower by 45 paisa at Rs20.70 on 6m shares, BankIslami Pakistan, off 45 paisa at Rs19.35 also on 6m shares.

Other actives were led by OGDC, easy by 50 paisa at Rs188 on 5m shares, Azgard Nine Textiles, unchanged at Rs51.50 on 7m shares and TRG Pakistan, lower 35 paisa at Rs12.40 also on 7m shares.

FORWARD COUNTER: Arif Habib Bank again led the list of actives on the cleared list, steady by 15 paisa at Rs32.15 on 13m shares followed by Pakistan Petroleum, off by Rs2.60 at Rs246.10 on 3m shares and Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim, lower by Rs1.17 at Rs40.71 also on 3m shares, while its February contract was marked down by Rs1.14 at Rs41 on 2m shares.