KARACHI - Increasing political noise, future roll over and June-end activity kept market in negative with dull volumes on Monday.
Investors booked profits ahead of year-end close in selected blue chip scrips across the board. The KSE-100 Index declined by 248.28 points or 0.72pc to close 34,278.42 points.
Traded volumes 188m shares worth of Rs7.2b/ $72m remained lower than Month-to-Date average of 379m shares of Rs.14b/ $140m. Engro and PAEL witnessed decent volumes of Rs.710b and Rs.474b respectively. Small cap stocks remained in limelight with DCL led the volume with 24m shares traded followed by KEL with 23m shares and Power with 10m shares, observed Samar Iqbal at Topline Securities. Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp stated trade was led by second and third tier stocks on strong valuations. Rising political noise, higher capital gains tax slabs levied from next month and falling global crude prices played a catalyst role in the prevailing session pressure at KSE.