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RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: The adverse impact of Iqbal Raad's murder continued unabated throttling the price run-up at the stock market on Monday, and values receded further while volume declined by 50 million shares compared with Friday's.

Investors and traders were perturbed over the murder of one of the lawyers of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, as the other defence lawyers boycotted the proceedings on Monday at the anti-terrorism court. The market trend was dominated by bears and selling by financial institutions. Another factor which discouraged activity in the stock market was the shorter week because of Eid holidays.

The KSE-100 index fell by 16.38 points to 1920.60 from 1936.98 of Friday. The volume amounted to 164.790 million shares as against 213.272 million shares of Friday. Three hundred eleven companies were called on the ready board of which 100 carried plus signs as against 126 losers while 85 remained unchanged. The market capitalisation moved down to Rs 488.071 billion from Rs 491.655 billion.

An analyst from Westminster and Eastern Services Ltd said that the market remained lackluster throughout the session as the trading week was reduced to three days. The bears, however, swiftly dragged the market down. Weak holders off-loaded their holdings, as they did not find any stimulus in the upward direction.

He said that the index kick started the week on a positive note and rose by 12 points in the morning session. The progress was later halted by the profit hunters who washed away the morning gain to close the day on a week note.The KSE index was likely to remain sluggish during the week. The analyst believed that market was in a phase of consolidation and due to the reduced week, the investors were reluctant to take fresh positions."As anticipated earlier, the overall sentiment was bearish in view of short clearing (consisting of three days only from Monday to Thursday). The punters rather preferred to keep to the sidelines," said Faisal Abbas of AHR Securities.In addition, as market men now became more dependent on the local institutions, unfortunately no support was received from them as they too were reluctant to take any fresh positions on account of upcoming Eid holidays. Moreover, bulk selling from one of the local institutions had already resulted in panic selling pressure to some extent.Mohammad Zubair Ellahi, of KAB Securities, said the strength of the speculatives was keeping the tempo stable though slow trimming in heavy weights was still on. The broader term outlook was still positive with immediate softness might emerge in second tier stocks.PTCL on a trading of 44.810 million shares showed a drop of 20 paisa to Rs 32.70, ICI on a volume of 31.641 million shares recorded a rise of 15 paisa to Rs 16.00, Hub Power moved down to Rs 27.80 from Rs 28.15 as nearly 18.317 million shares changed hands and Dewan on a turnover of 9.838 million shares moved down to Rs 35 from Rs 33.85.