KARACHI - The local bourse remained range-bound on Wednesday after bullish session yesterday as benchmark KSE 100-index closed at 9,303 level with 30 points down. A major investor concern remained the disbursement of IMFs fourth tranche which is to be decided upon later today, while stock picking and investing on news have had impacts on the market today. AHSL and NCL remained volume leaders for the second consecutive day, on the back of news of Fatima Fertilizers book building and an increase in yarn export figures, respectively. The volumes dropped 15 percent to 117m shares as compared to 137m shares traded a day earlier. PTCL witnessed increased volumes as S&P maintained Mobilinks CCC+ rating, reflecting a positive sign for the telecom sector. ATRL also saw a rally as the refinery pricing formula committee is set to present its proposal to change the deemed duty on 31st Dec. The KSE 30-index closed at 9782.36 after losing 43.55 points, while all share index closed at 6604.49 after losing 19.44 points. Market capitalisation stands over Rs 2.681tr. Out of total 398 companies 168 advanced, 204 declined and 26 remained unchanged. The experts are saying that the market is going forward and good expected corporate results in banking and oil sectors would help to drive the market in positive zone soon. In the beginning of this year, the average spread between securities of different maturities was 25 basis points on average but currently it has significantly reduced to an average of 7 basis points, a decline of 2.56 times, they added. The news affected the market were State Bank of Pakistans submission of the list of written off loans, about 193 billion rupees, to Supreme Court; Establishing of Joint Study Group by Afghanistan with the objective of suggesting measures to curb smuggling; Trans-LoC trade between AJK, India exceeds Rs 70 million; and 40 percent cut in services sector deficit. The experts Muzzammil Aslam and Farhan Rizvi of JS Global Capital expect the local equity market to continue its positive momentum in 2010 as the economic recovery gathers pace and key risks start to subside. The main factors behind this hope are that Kerry Lugar Bill has been approved by the GoP with the first tranche of $800m expected shortly; speculation on the NRO is over; the military is making progress in its fight against extremists in the Northern Areas; and IMFs fourth tranche is expected to be approved at the Dec 23rd board meeting. Moreover, going forward, external flows are expected to improve with the FoDP, KLB and other bilateral and multilateral assistance, which should provide SBP room for quantitative easing alongside the policy rate cut, they added. They further said that these anticipated foreign inflows along with recent news flow, regarding $700m assistance pledged by China for dam construction and the reduction in power subsidies (a 13.6pc tariff hike announced to be effective Jan 2010) will provide the GoP the necessary fiscal space, to achieve higher PSDP utilisation in 2010.