KARACHI - The Karachi stock market ended lower on Thursday because of a fall in international oil prices and political uncertainty. The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) benchmark 100-share index, which opened in the green zone with a gain of 30.60 points, ended 0.25 percent, or 23.74 points, lower at 9,579.81 on turnover of 140.43 million shares. The KSE 30-index closed at 10017.88 with a loss of 20.99 points. The KMI-30 index closed at 14141.91 with a loss of 47.68 points. All shares index closed at 6794.88 with a loss of 21.03 points. The bearish trend continued to dominate due to political uncertainty and the continuous fall in oil prices. The energy sector is the heaviest weighted sector on the KSE. Moreover, the absence of buyers led to a panic sell-off, even though certain main board stocks are still sustaining over valued levels carrying high chances of further depletion, a cautious stance was quite prominent. Todays slight recovery can be attributed to OGDC, LUCK, Engro, FFBL and PTCL, PPL also supported with minor gains, while rest of the Oil and Gas sector tilted towards negative territory. Trading activity was better as compared to the last trading session as the ready market volume stood at 182.775m as compared to last trading sessions 146.545m. Future market volume, however, stood at 4.271m shares as compared to 4.392m shares of last trading session. Market capitalization stands over Rs2.756tr, as total trades increased to 110,098 as compared to last trading sessions 79,356, while 102 companies advanced, 269 declined and 11 remained unchanged. Highest volumes were witnessed in LOTPTA at 21.370m closed at Rs10.37 with a loss of Re0.30 followed by FFBL at 13.685m closed at Rs32.00 with a gain of Rs0.35, PTC at 11.212m closed at Rs19.43 with a gain of 0.34. The news that affected the market were: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said the rupee value slid by 3.4 percent against US dollar from July to December last year (1HFY10) much less than that of previous year which was 15.7 percent in the inter-market; Cut-off yield for the benchmark 6-month paper scaled down by 15.7 basis points to 11.897 percent from 12.054 percent in the State Bank of Pakistans (SBP) auction; and the arrival of completely built up units (CBU) has fallen sharply in the last few years followed by up to 100 percent increase in prices. Moreover, the National Savings Bonds launched by the Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on Jan 12 secured subscription of Rs3.6 billion for the 15 days during the time the register was open for subscription; and Prime Minister has directed the NAB to take up the Swiss cases, also have impact on the trading activities of the market. Similarly, Engro Corporation reported profit after tax of PKR3, 957mn in CY09 (diluted EPS: PKR13.28) witnessing a slight decline of 7% against PKR4, 240mn in CY08 (EPS: PKR14.23), which was unexpected mainly on account of higher recorded other income. Extreme pressure invited cautious accumulation that allowed the benchmark to take a technical breather; and the recovery was supported by the textile sector stocks along with technically oversold stocks, while the development in PTC allowed the stock to resist pressure faced by the bench mark. Hasnain Asghar Ali at Aziz Fidahusein said, Failure of the local bourse to react on well-placed developments, including official statement that Etisalat to pay $800m by March and marketing of optimism regarding likely cut in policy rate, depicts the weakness of the local equity market, as indeed the declining trend in revenue and payout, with some exceptions, have pushed the participants on the sidelines.