KARACHI: Panic-selling on the stock market on Wednesday resulted in steep fall of KSE-100 index by 654.78 points (1.59 per cent) to close at an 11-month low of 40,461 points.

As the political wrangling intensified in and out of parliament, so did investor scepticism over its early positive outcome. Specula­tions on what may have transpired at the Corps commander meeting made matters worse.

Investors’ worries gave way to fear resulting in second day of massive selling that saw the index sink to intraday low by 1,246 points to 39,918 points, representing the lowest level since Nov 1, 2016.

Market observers noted that until Wednesday, the index was down 13pc fiscal year-to-date, 15pc calendar year-to-date and 23pc from its May 25 intraday peak.

“However, buying in heavyweight stocks during the latter hours resulted in some recovery,” said analysts at JS Global.

The volume rose 59pc over the previous day to 192 million shares while the traded value also surged 42pc to Rs9.65 billion.

According to the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Ltd figures, some institutional buying was overwhelmed by selling of around $13m worth equities by insurance companies, brokers proprietary trading and foreigners, combined.

According to Topline Sec­u­­­rities, top 10 index point decliners were SNGP which went down 4.9pc, OGDC 2pc, ENGRO 2.2pc, DAWH 3.4pc, PSO 2.5pc, HBL 0.8pc, DGKC 3pc, ISL 4.9pc, EFERT 2.7pc and FCCL 4.3pc, taking away 268 points.

On the sector front; fertiliser shed 117 points, cement 110 points, OMC’s 83 points, banks 73 points and E&Ps 48 points. Other market participants noted that the gains were few and fractional. PSEL gained 4.64pc, UBL 0.66pc and POL 0.75pc, adding 42 points to the index.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2017