960417

Gloom, despair

over downtrend

in trading hall

JMJ

KARACHI: There were too many factors that went in the favour of the bears, in a negative trend the optimism if any gets washed down by the strong currents of pessimism and the downtrend begins its journey.

The downtrend folds a bigger number of casualties so the atmosphere in the trading hall was of gloom and despair, members spoke of mercy and salvation from above and wondered what the future holds for them.

The GDR's had gone down and waning interest in the Pakistani market by the foreigners was posing a great threat to the local market. The Asian markets like Bombay, Colombo, Hong Kong, Manila were higher due to foreign interest but only our market was in the opposite direction.

PTC was US $ 89.00 and US $ 92.00 and Hub Power was US $ 19.50 and US $ 20.00, these indicate that there was a lot of selling interest abroad and though the kerb, till filing of this report, had improved, simply it seems to give false hopes to the bulls. The rates were Rs.32.20 and Rs.29.00 respectively.

Fauji Jordan had touched the level of Rs.13.50 and the punters feel that still one could sell at these levels and cover at lower levels without panicking, there was no interest in Orix Investment Bank in the kerb.

The strike call has had a very bad effect in Karachi and if it prolongs it would prove to be the last nail in the coffin and to top all these negative news there is a rumour in the market that a foreign mutual fund is liquidating and PTC and Hub Power are in its portfolio and they have to be sold.

The political situation looks grim and dangerously poised so one has to hope and see how successfully the government plays its role to avoid any catastrophe, in this term the record has been somewhat good to tackle such problems without fearing the democratic norms.