KARACHI, Jan 29: Stocks ran into profit-selling on Thursday as some of investors took profits at the inflated levels, but the KSE 100-share index managed to finish with a fresh modest rise of 43.29 points at 5,183.22 points on renewed buying in the leading base shares.

However, the steep decline in the turnover figure at about 144m shares from the overnight’s 249m shares signals that bears have again taken over the central stage.

All other indexes also rose under the lead of the KSE 30-share, which posted a fresh increase of 89.17 points at 4,961.95 and so did All Share index at 3,886.59, up 18.45 points on the strength of some leading base shares namely OGDC, PTCL, PSO, PECO, Pakistan Oilfields, MCB Bank, National Bank and Habib Bank.

“I won’t say the rally initiated by the banking and oil sectors for good reasons too failed to generate sympathetic buying on other counters, one thing is clear that everyone appears to be on the hunting mission to recoup some of the previous losses where possible,” most analysts believe.

But some others attributed the relative slowdown in the rising tempo on technical grounds as the market consolidated gains of the last three sessions and hoped that the fund buying could sustain the rising tempo in the sessions to come.

“The turnaround witnessed during the last couple of sessions seems to have faltered halfway,” they said. “The background news is not that positive to make long-term investment at this stage”.Floor brokers said no one could opt to invest in share business despite the fact that the current levels are attractive enough for quick capital gains but political background news may not support any genuine or speculative rise for obvious reasons.

Leading gainers were led by MCB Bank, Shell Pakistan, Pakistan Oilfields, Engro Chemical, Packages and Tri-Pack Films, which posted gains ranging from Rs4.08 to Rs5.50. Rafhan Maize came in for active foreign selling and fell by Rs71.29 followed by Shezan International, off Rs16.10 and EFU Life, which posted a fresh fall of Rs10.14.

Island Textiles, Al-Ghazi Tractors, Ferozsons Lab, Clariant Pakistan, Dawood Hercules and Packages followed them and were marked further down by Rs4.86 to Rs9.97.

Trading volume fell to 144m shares from the previous 249m shares as losers forced a strong lead over the gainers at 185 to 97, with six shares holding onto the last levels.OGDC again led the list of actives, up by 47 paisa at Rs44.10 on 16m shares followed by NIB Bank, lower 20 paisa at Rs5.32 on 10m shares, PTCL, up 93 paisa at Rs14.71 also on 10m shares, WorldCall Telecom, steady by one paisa at Rs3.11 on 10m shares, J.S.& Co, higher by Rs1.27 at Rs26.70 on 9m shares, Mybank easy by 32 paisa at Rs3.72 also on 9m shares, and Bank of Punjab, lower by 38 paisa at Rs9.12 on 6m shares.

Hub-Power followed them, steady by two paisa at Rs15.73 on 4m shares, Faysal Bank, up Re1 at Rs11.62 also on 4m shares and BankIslami, up 32 paisa at Rs6.57 on 4m shares.

FORWARD COUNTER: Mixed trend was seen on the cleared list where oil and bank shares rose under the lead of Pakistan Oilfields, PSO, MCB Bank, Packages, Engro Chemical and some others and posted fresh gains ranging from Rs4.01 to Rs5.38 but without any transaction, some others however fell notably Fauji Fertiliser and Pakistan Petroleum.

DEFAULTER COMPANIES: Zeal Pakistan Cement came in for active selling and fell by seven paisa at Rs0.42 on 1.462m shares followed by Japan Power, also easy by seven paisa at Rs1.33 on 0.085m shares and Unity Modaraba, steady by Re1 at Rs0.23 on 0.302m shares.

National Asset Leasing followed them, also up by one paisa at Rs0.39 on 0.207m shares, while Globe Textiles rose by Re1 at Rs8.20 on 500 shares. Others mostly fell where changed on renewed selling.