KSE makes no impression

Shares on Thursday ended flat as the benchmark KSE 100-index fell by just 24 points to close at 7,051 points due to profit booking by investors after a rangebound day.
"The market fell because of the proposal of National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance to impose Capital Value Tax (CVT) on stock market transactions," a leading analyst told The Financial Daily.
He, however, said commitment of aid by European Commission would bring some positive news in the coming days. The European Commission - the EU's executive arm - on Wednesday said it would give an additional 72 million euros in emergency humanitarian assistance to Pakistan for relief of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of Swat and adjoining areas.
"Online server was not operating at the market owing to prolong power failure in the city that also affected activities at the market," another analyst told TFD by phone.
However, above expectation cut in T-bill rates and commitment by the Finance Advisor of at least 100bps decline in upcoming monetary policy and further incentives for industries in the trade policy kept the optimism alive during the session.
The day-end offloading by traders pushed the bench mark to red zone, despite strong resistance, offered by placing big quantity bids in the stocks having heavy weight in the benchmark, said the analyst.
Trading started with a gain of 18 points, thereafter market witnessed some range-bound activities throughout the day but most of the time it stayed in the positive zone where at about 12pm index touched an intraday high of 7,142 points (+ve 67 points). Index gave certain visits to both the territories but finally day-end selling let the index close in the negative zone where during the last minute of the session index touched its lowest level of the day of 7,026 points (-ve 49 points).
Data released by National Clearing Company of Pakistan (NCCPL) showed that foreigners too were the net sellers as there was net foreign selling of $1.15 million during the day.
KSE 30-index dropped 46 points to close at 7,492 points and KSE all share index lost 17 points to close at 5,055 points.
Volumes saw a significant improvement as 145 million shares traded during the day which is 50 million shares more as compared to a turnover of around 95 million shares a day earlier.
Out of total 291 active issues, 174 declined and 100 advanced while 17 issues remained unchanged.