KARACHI: A war of nerve between bulls and bears had been continuing at the Karachi Stock Exchange for the entire previous week as the KSE 100-index jolted many a time owing to Azadi and Inqilab marches led by Imran Khan, the chief of Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf (PT) and Dr Tahirul Qadri, the chief of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) in the federal capital. The overall KSE 100-index lost six points during the week which shows that the investors preferred to stay away from taking any risk amid political chaos in the country.
On Monday morning — after a two-day closure – the stock resumed its trading with a downward trend losing 65 points on the first day of the business week after the call of civil disobedience by Imran Khan. The situation on the second day was also not different as the prevailing political turmoil continued to take toll on all sorts of economic activities across the country and the Index declined by more than 222 points and reached the level of 28,630.
Wednesday, however, was a comparatively good day for the Karachi Stock Exchange which gained 34.72 to reach 28664.84 points as the prime minister vowed to ease the tension between government and protesting parties. Amid signs of thaw in the prevailing political impasse — that had gripped Pakistan the whole week – the stock witnessed a sharp rise on Thursday and rose by 200.41 points crossing the level of 28865.25 points.
This gain, however, could not be sustained on Friday although KSE-100-index gained 45.78 points to close at 28911.03 points on the last day of the week as the confusion still prevailed in the Red Zone after the cancellation of talks between the PTI and PML (N) committees.
An uncertainty hovered over Pakistan’s top stock market the whole week as the participants of two marches were still sitting in front of Parliament. The PTI and the PAT are protesting against the alleged rigging in the 2013 general elections and have been calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Bears have been running through the stocks during the whole week due to political chaos, however, foreign buying saved the market from a major loss in the last days of the week and this foreign participation has the capability to keep local investors optimistic and benchmark to remain close to green.
