Share values moved in a very tight band on Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE), where volume declined alarmingly, reflecting lack of interest from the key players, however, index managed a positive closing, with a slight improvement. The LSE-25 index finished at 3559.16 points versus 3547.91 of the previous session, registering a marginal increment of 11.25 points or 0.3 percent.
Overall turnover fell to 11.298 million shares from 24.707 million shares, posting a decline of 13.409 million shares or 54.27 percent.
The market, though remained in a positive zone throughout the day, activity was very low because of lack of interest from heavy-weights who stayed at distance, awaiting some positive development with regard to the SECP-brokers dispute, which is a key factor for the prevailing dullness of the market, stock analysts said.
According to them, the market wore a deserted look, while brokers were seen sitting idle watching television news in absence of investors due to which volume level was one of the lowest in the current year. However, some interest was observed, at one stage, in Allied Bank Modarba, PPL and National Bank, while PSO, Shell Pakistan and UBL received bulk of pressure.
The stock analysts said, if the existing state of affairs remained unchanged and no breakthrough is achieved in settling the contentious issues between brokers and the market regulator, the situation would remain unchanged. There is no key investor, local or foreign, in the market, while brokerage houses' attitude is also indifferent, as uncertainty over the future of badla and margin financing issues seem to be intensified, said Mirza Muhammad Irfan, equity research head of Capital Vision Securities Ltd.
At present, only intra-day traders are in the market and that is why business activity is dull and the volume has come down to an alarming level, he added. He said that reason for big players going on sidelines is silence from the government side for settling the pending issues.
"Today we were expecting issuance of a notification for implementation of what Dr Salman Shah, advisor to Prime Minster and Minister of State for Finance Omer Ayub Khan had agreed with brokers a few days back, ie enhancement of the badla capping from 12 billion rupees to 20-25 billion rupees and decrease in badla margin." But till 4.00 pm, there was no such indication from Islamabad, which caused unrest among the market people, he added.
"We have witnessed that whenever the government showed some flexibility in its attitude and accordingly a positive development took place to resolve the issue, the SECP issued a notice very next day that negated the impact of the earlier one," he pointed out.
Therefore, now people are not ready to take risk in haste and adopting a wait and see policy. Moreover, there were rumours about replacement of SECP chief Dr Tariq Hassan and his close aides. His removal will have a positive impact on the market, as the new chief will definitely do something to dispel the negative impression of the regulator by taking remedial measures, even if he does not undo what Dr Hassan has done with the market stakeholders, he added.
Out of a total of 82 traded scrips, 10 were up, 30 suffered losses, while 42 were intact to its previous levels. Among prime gainers, Allied Bank Modaraba 1st improved by Rs 1.10, PPL Rs 0.45, National Bank Rs 0.45,Kapco Rs 0.35 and OGDC Rs 0.30. In minus zone, Shell Pakistan shed Rs 14.00, PSO Rs 3.50,UBL Rs 2.25, while Pakistan Industrial Credit and Faysal Bank Rs 0.95 and 0.75, respectively.
PTCL and PPL led the market by volume with 3.283 million shares and 1.495 million shares, respectively.
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