KARACHI, Jan 9: The share market on Wednesday again turned lower as weakness of the insurance and banking sectors spilled over to other counters followed by reports of lower earnings and profit-selling in most of them.

Active selling in the leading bank shares, notably National Bank, MCB and EFU Life and General and Adamjee Insurance on market talk of lower earnings for the year ended Dec 31, 2007, and some other blue chips on the other counters took the entire market along with them in the minus column, analysts said.After opening higher, the KSE 100-share index suffered a decline of 52.77 points at 14,266.42 as compared to previous 14,319.19. The session’s low and high was touched at 14,236.75 and 14,369.71. The free float 30-share index fell by 97.54 points at 16,825.83.

“It appears to be earning-linked profit-selling amid market talk that the payouts by some of them may not be that encouraging as being speculated by independent sources,” said a leading broker.

But some others said investors were in two minds about the future share business outlook in the wake of changing political background news and fears of some unseen developments.

Some of the leading petroleum shares, however, came in for active support followed by reports of rebound staged by the international oil prices limiting the market decline as petroleum shares have a large weightage in the index. Attock Refinery, Pakistan Petroleum and Pakistan Oilfields were leading among them.

But investors mostly played safe and did not go beyond the safe havens or the low-priced issues in an apparent effort to avert major decline in a volatile market.

Unconfirmed reports say a good part of liquid funds has found its way into bullion market where the yellow metal is trading around its all-time peak level owing to pressure on ready supplies.

“Until the volume figures do not stay above the 300 million shares level, the market performance may remain below normal,” said a leading analyst.

Larger daily volumes, in market parlance, are linked to a robust activity as investors play on both sides of the fence amid alternate bouts of buying and selling.

Although minus signs dominated the list some of the leading shares managed to finish with fresh gains, leading among them being National Foods and JS & Co, up by Rs22 and Rs58.55 respectively. Other good gainers included AKD Securities, Mitchell’s Farms, HinoPak, Fazal Textiles, Arif Habib Ltd, Attock Refinery, Habib Bank, Lakson Tobacco and Attock Petroleum, which rose by Rs9.45 to Rs19.

Siemens Pakistan and EFU Life Assurance were leading among the losers, off Rs29 and Rs29.80, respectively, followed by Adamjee Insurance, Pak-Suzuki Motors, Dawood Hercules, Nestle Pakistan, Unilever Pakistan, Mari Gas, EFU General and Pakistan Resource Co, which were quoted lower by Rs7.50 to Rs21.95.

Trading volume fell to 223m shares from the previous 256m shares as losers again forced a strong lead over the gainers at 213 to 111, with 40 shares holding on to the last levels.

Attock Refinery led the list of actives, sharply higher by Rs11.70 at Rs281.55 on reports of higher earnings, on 14m shares followed by NIB Bank, lower by Rs40 paisa at Rs23.55 also on 14m shares and Azgard Nine Textiles, higher by Rs2.45 at Rs51.95 on 13m shares.Arif Habib Securities, off Rs3.25 at Rs169 on 10m shares, Pakistan Petroleum, up by Rs2.05 at Rs253.05 on 9m shares, Pakistan Oilfields, higher by Rs3 at Rs339.50 on 8m shares and Javed Omer & Co, up by Rs1.50 at Rs142.40 on 7m shares.

Other actives were led by Bosicor Pakistan, lower by 25 paisa at Rs21.10 on 10m shares, TRG Pakistan, off 30 paisa at Rs13.80 on 9m shares, Pervez Ahmed Securities, up by Rs2.80 at Rs58.85 on 8m shares.

FORWARD COUNTER: Arif Habib Bank led the list of actives on this counter, higher by Rs1.45 at Rs31.35 on 9m shares, followed by MCB, off Rs4.60 at Rs392.85 on 3m shares and Pakistan Oilfields, higher by Rs3.65 at Rs341.25 on 2m shares.