KARACHI, Nov 27: Trading activity on the stock market on Thursday failed to pick up as investors adhered to the sidelines and did not make fresh commitments awaiting the outcome of KSE board meeting on the issue of removal of ‘floor’ from under the KSE 100-share index.

But sources said the KSE board again kept the issue pending apparently owing to difference of opinion among the board members but it was speculated that the market could probably witness the lifting of floor on Dec 1.

“The authorities may have some valid reasons for keeping the floor, but it has to be removed one day why not on Dec 1,” said Hasnain Asghar Ali, adding “to be or not to be may have exhausted its shelf life by now”.

No one could is sure that the lifting of the floor may follow nervous selling, it could be otherwise too, he said. “Attractively lower levels could attract any amount of covering purchases after the normal opening,” he added.

But Ahsan Mehanti thinks most of the investors including the big players are virtually terrorised by the delay and some of them have lost interest in the share business.

Weak economy, falling forex reserves and deteriorating law and order situation are other factors which could work against the underlying sentiment, he added.

The benchmark KSE 100-share index again did not show any change and so did its junior partner KSE 30-share index and glued to previous levels of 9,187.10 and 9,981.93, respectively. But the KSE all-share index was fractionally quoted lower by 0.01 point at 6,661.70.

Price changes were mostly fractional and were mostly on the lower side, leading losers being Taxila Engineering and Habib-ADM, lower by 31 and two paisa followed by Standard Chartered Modaraba and National Asset Leasing, off one and two paisa.

On the higher side, Al-Asif Sugar was the exception and was marked up by 11 paisa on stray support.

Trading volume rose to 82,500 shares from the previous 47,100 shares as losers held a modest lead over the gainers at four to one, with four shares holding on to the overnight levels.

National Asset Leasing led the list of actives, lower by two paisa at Rs0.45 on 51,500 shares followed by Dar-es-Salaam Textiles, static at Rs4.25 on 10,000 shares, Paramount Modaraba, unchanged at Rs9.25 on 5,000 shares, Standard Chartered Modaraba, easy by one paisa at Rs8.60 on 5,000 shares, Millat Tractors, static at Rs163.92 on 1,000 shares and Southern Electric, static at Rs3.60 on 500 shares.

FORWARD COUNTER: Bearish conditions were again witnessed on the cleared list where 30 shares out of the total 42, fell but not a single rose in the absence of demand.Allied Bank again led the list of prominent losers, lower nine paisa at Rs57.91, followed by Bank of Punjab, easy by four paisa at Rs24.79, Fauji Fertiliser Company, lower 15 paisa at Rs100.05 and ICI Pakistan, off 19 paisa at Rs127.05. All of them failed to attract any buyer at the falling prices.

DEFAULTER COMPANIES: Al-Asif Sugar came in for stray support and rose by 11 paisa at Rs4.25 on 6,000 shares followed by Taxila Engineering lower by 31 paisa at Rs4.46 on 1,500 shares.