KARACHI, May 17: Stocks at the Karachi share market extended the bearish spell on Thursday, with the KSE-100 index taking a small loss of 17.99 points to 14,063.08 points.

In comparison to the heavy plunge of 233 points a day earlier, the drop of share values on Thursday was minor as bulls offered strong resistance.

The index touched high of 14,152.58, before giving in to profit-taking by mutual funds and foreign investors. The latter ended as net sellers of $4.20 million worth equity. Local individuals, companies and banks together bought shares valued at $7.10 million that softened the impact of foreign sell.

A broker said that much of the activity on Thursday was witnessed in the off-market.

Samar Iqbal, Equity dealer at Topline Securities, stated that the market remained ranged-bound throughout the day, with low volumes.

PTC fell after no developments on the International clearing house front. Cement stock DGKC recovered after remaining under pressure in last few sessions.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp also observed that fall in global stocks and commodities on Greek debt worries and limited foreign interest affected the sentiments despite expectations of improvement in Pak-US relations following the settlement of NATO supplies issue.

Investors were also awaiting the federal budget due next month.

Both major cement stocks resumed the climb on Thursday after having received severe battering in the several previous sessions.

Yawar-Uz-Zaman, analyst at InvestCap, informed that the cement manufacturers in the North had reversed the previous decrease of Rs10-20 per bag in prices.

The news flow was mixed with the federal cabinet directing ministry of finance to solve financial problems of the power sector. Banks hanging on to the old habit of investing in risk-free instruments with Rs143 billion parked in treasury bills on Wednesday.

The announcement of increase in power tariff was thought to add to cost of production.

The KSE-30 index shed just 2.48 points to 12274.18 points, representing that big cap stocks were holding onto their prices. That was also evident by the market capitalisation, which fell lightly by Rs3 billion to Rs3.594 trillion, against a big plunge of Rs59 billion the earlier day.

Turnover was low both in terms of number of shares traded and their value, but compared to earlier day, there was marginal change of 2 per cent to 143 million shares of trading value of Rs5.015 billion changing hands on Thursday, compared to 146 million shares of value of Rs5.133 billion traded on Wednesday.

Among lead gainers, UniLever Pakistan stood firm, up by Rs105 to Rs7157 and Nestle Pakistan added Rs21.25 to Rs4025.82. The biggest decrease was noted in UniLever Food, down by Rs130.45 to Rs3,115 and Rafhan Maize decreasing by Rs100 to Rs2,900.

In a total of 384 active scrips on Thursday, the gap between stocks ending in plus and minus territory narrowed down to 170 and 140, with another 74 closing unchanged.

On the list of top 10 volume leaders, PTCL saw trading in 19m shares, down by 53 paisa to Rs15.59. It was followed by D.G. Cement gaining Rs1.30 to Rs42.50 on 17m shares. BankIslami Pakistan kept up the rising momentum with gain of 98 paisa to Rs9.95 on 13m shares, Jah Sidd Co edged higher by 3 paisa to Rs15.94 on 12m shares, Engro Foods hit the upper cap by adding Rs3.02 to Rs63.60 on 8m shares.

Engro Corporation lost another 30 paisa to end at Rs102.99 on 6m shares, Lucky Cement gained 53 paisa to Rs125.73 on 4m shares, Azgard Nine rose by 28 paisa to Rs6.99 on 4m shares, JS Investments shed 11 paisa to Rs9.06 on 3m shares and Fatima Fertiliser conceded 26 paisa to Rs24.22 on 3m shares.