20000103

Stocks suffer heavy losses

RECORDER REVIEW

KARACHI: The Indian Air Lines hijacking made the investors perturbed over the week and forced the genuine investors to leave the bourses as they suffered heavy losses but in fag end of the week, equities tried to stage a comeback and helped stop the volley of declines.

The share marked during the week saw heavy depression and received distress signals following the hijacking of the Indian airline plane flying from Kathmandu to Delhi. There was a rush of weak holders to square their positions as a result of which steam went out of the rally.

The gory incident which took place on the eve of December 24, created deep scare and investors were perturbed over India's attitude to implicate\ Pakistan and the media turned the act of terrorism into a national tragedy. This incident increased tension between the two nuclear capable countries of the South Asia.

The market continued its declining course till first three sessions and number of casualties' rose after every passing hour. However, on Thursday the last session of the week, saw brisk buying activity in the blue chip items in the hope that soon the passengers of the airplane stranded at the Kandhar airport would be released. On January 1, 2000 the market was closed because of precaution against Y2K bug which was likely to attack all the computers in the world.

The trading pattern was restricted to handful of scrips. But few fought well against the onslaught of bears as their fundamentals were quite strong. FFC Jordan posted handsome gains as the reports filtered into the market that the company would soon commerce its commercial production. It was delayed since last four to six months. The current rate became attractive bait for the market men.

Furthermore during the end of the week PSO and Sui Northern Gas also showed recovery on the reports that the government is to soon announce a privatisation policy. The privatisation commission has initiated a strategy to retire $8 to $10 billion expensive short-term loans to kick start the economy after selling the shares of state-owned enterprises.

As the passengers of Indian airline plane have released, the market men hope that the week might see some recovery and the index, before the close of Eid holidays, might record an increase of atleast 20 to 30 points.

A leading trader said that the recovery on Thursday was because the investors have started ignoring the reports about hijacking and trying to focus on the fundamentals.

The market after the Eid-holidays is likely to consolidate more gains as an International Monetary Fund team is arriving "to review Pakistani's" economy. The government is expected to get $280 million loans from the $1.56 billion credit approved last January. The government has implemented two conditions of the Fund, increasing petroleum prices and imposition of general sales tax across the board.

There was talk among the movers and shakers of the market that soon Wapda would meet the officials of Hubco to resolve the two-year dispute of high tariff charges. If the government resolves this issue, it would help build up confidence of the investors both home and abroad.

The KSE-100 index saw marginal rise of 0.95 points and ended at 1408.91 from 1407.96 last week. The volume during the week 411.291 million shares against 616.380 million shares of the previous week. The market capitalisation moved to Rs 366.669 billion from Rs 365.294 billion.

PSO on a trading of 107.726 million shares fell by Rs 2.50 to Rs 194.00, Hubco on a business of 72.540 million shares moved to Rs 21.35 from Rs 22.00. PTCL closed at Rs 21.70, showing a rise of 10 paisa as around 57,258 million shares changed hands. FFC Jordan finished at Rs 13.20 from Rs 12.30 on a turnover of 47.629 million shares and ICI at close registered a decline of 30 paisa to Rs 10.50 on a volume of 20.294 million shares.