Conflicting rumours about the outcome of President Musharraf's meeting with the PML top brass disturbed the sentiment, keeping people in a confusing state of mind on local stock market, where share values moved erratically to make a weak closing. The LSE-25 index was down by 23.99 points or 0.63 percent to close at 3771.18 points versus 3795.17 points of the previous session. There was a slight improvement in trade turnover, which closed at 59.733 million shares from 54.832 million shares, depicting a surge of 4.9 million shares.
Amid fears regarding decision of the ruling PML leaders' meeting with the President, the trading started with a bearish note and the sentiment remained subdued in early hours, stock analysts said, adding when the news of a meeting between PML chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali reached the market, the equities started recovering.
Private TV channels reported that the meeting between the two leaders was held in an amicable manner, which sent positive vibes in the market. However, the rumours about a political turmoil gripped the market, and did not allow it to take a positive turn, they pointed out.
PPL and PSO remained under heavy selling pressure to suffer massive losses, while Dewan Salman Fibre and PTCL attracted fresh buying, but failed to change the sentiment affected by the rumours coming from the political front.
The reports appearing in Press that Oil Company's Advisory Committee could not decide about quarterly revision in the prices of petroleum products on Saturday was also a disturbing factor, some stock brokers viewed.
According to them, the anticipation that the government might not change the prices for another 15 days brought a negative impact on the market due to which the entire petroleum sector on Monday remained under pressure. At the close of the market, losers were far ahead of gainers.
Javed Iqbal, chief executive, Javed Iqbal Securities Ltd, said the sentiment was quite positive in initial trading hours, following the news regarding a fruitful Shujaat-Jamali meeting in Islamabad and the index recovered back. However, later confusion about the outcome of the meeting of PML leaders with the President badly affected the sentiment.
The market response was also negative to the statement of Jamali that he could only pray for the present assemblies while another news hitting the market in last minutes was that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz could advise the President to dissolve the Parliament, he added.
He said the market moved both in positive and negative zones amid contradictory news coming from Islamabad, he observed.
According to him, till the close of the market, there was no concrete report concerning the meeting, therefore, the market ended the session with a negative note. How the market will behave on Tuesday depends on the results of PML meeting with the President, he pointed out.
If it is positive, he said the market will surely improve on Tuesday and in case of a disappointing result, the sentiment will be totally different. About the brokers' outstanding issues with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) Javed Iqbal pointed out that there was complete silence from the regulator about the KSE fresh recommendations on increasing limits on futures counter.
Out of a total of 81 traded scrips, eight improved their worth, 33 stayed in minus column, while 40 closed at their previous levels.
Among gainers, Dewan Salman was up Rs 1.45, PTCL and Engro Chemical Re 1.00 each, while Southern Electric Power and Crescent Standard Investment 25 paisa each.
Key losers were PPL, which shed Rs 10.95, PSO Rs 8.50, Nishat Mills Rs 4.00, Picic Growth Fund Rs 2.15, and Kapco Rs 2.15.
Comments
Comments are closed.