KARACHI: Stocks on Friday extended losses for the second day with the KSE-100 index down by 150.93 points, or 0.32 per cent, closing at 47,490. During the week, the index made a sizeable gain of 435 points.

Investors, therefore, preferred to take profit on the last day in the absence of positive triggers that could catapult the index above 48,000 level. On the other hand, bad news continues to flow from the Covid-19 front where on Aug 5, a heavy 5,661 positive cases and 60 deaths were reported while the positivity rate rose to a record 9.06pc.

Although the rush for vaccination seemed to eclipse the growing corona numbers, knowledgeable investors could not shake off the worry over a lockdown with its dire consequences on the economy. “Weaker rupee, falling global crude oil prices and circular debt crises played catalyst role in bearish close” said analyst Ahsan Mehanti.

In range bound trading, the index moved between the intraday high and low by 112 and 216 points. Sector-wise, cement, chemical, refinery, textile and technology sectors succumbed to selling pressure while banks and glass & ceramics sectors saw stray buying.

Steel rebar prices have been increased by Rs5,000 per tonne which kept the steel sector in the limelight. For the third day mutual funds liquidated positions, ostensibly to meet redemptions. Insurance companies also continued to offload to book profit at current levels. Foreign investors cherry-picked stocks worth $0.82m.

The trading volume decreased 9pc over the earlier day to 499.7m shares with Pervez Ahmed Consultancy leading the scrips with highest turnover while another one-third of the aggregate volume was contributed by Unity Foods, DSL, WorldCall Telecom and FFL. Value of share traded also declined by 11pc to $ 83.5m.

Among scrips MEBL, GHGL, BAFL, MCB and International Industries combined to push index higher but were overwhelmed by shares that weighed down on the index in the lead of TRG, Unity, Lucky Cement, Systems and Hub Power Company.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2021