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RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: The stock market recorded a small downward correction on Tuesday as several lucrative scrips offered good capital gains if offloaded at this juncture.

The computer trading system once again suffered a glitch and failed to show the exact slide and the turnover recorded on Tuesday. "It is worrisome and sends wrong signals to foreign investors that the local exchange has been unable to cater for such big volumes on day to day basis", a leading investor said.

By mid-session, the index was down by 21 points but the figures released by the stock market officials for the data available at 4.15 p.m depicted a different picture. The market was down by 1.24 points to 1660.09 by 4.15 p.m. The volume traded was at 420.587 million shares as against 462.634 million shares of Monday.

The market was on the course of decline as the index in the last six sessions had scored over 200 points. The blue chips and investment stocks had reached optimum level and had little room for upward march.

Some dealers that the market was depressed owing to law and order situation in the city. On Monday a powerful bomb blast shook the city and eight people died in the incident. A leading trader said that the military government should monitor the law and order situation in the city for if it was disturbed in future all the recovery made in last few months might be washed out soon.

Bears were in a mood to take control of the proceedings, but bulls tried to fight back. The market needed some positive development to sustain its gains such as release of $280 million from the credit line of $1.56 billion approved last year by the International Monetary Fund and resolution of power tariff issue with the Hub Power Company.

A dealer said that the government had allowed all banks to remit the dividend amount held by non-residents, royalties and technical fees. This would prove to be healthy a portent for the market and might induce fresh investment from foreign fund houses soon. He added that the move indicated that slowly the government was relaxing capital controls in the country. The government imposed capital restrictions in June 1998 after it conducted the nuke test on May 28, 1998 which resulted in imposition of sanctions by the western countries.

Hubco recorded a volume of 130.781 million, PTCL 126.168 million shares, ICI 18.328 million shares, PSO 10,066 million shares and FFC Jordan 5.305 million shares.