KARACHI: Multifarious challenges currently the country faced with kept the stocks flat as the Karachi Stock Exchange benchmark KSE-100 remained fluctuating, losing half of its gains made during early trading to decline to 30033 points in midday trading on Monday.
Earlier, the market started the week on a positive note and went up 34 points or 0.11 percent to reach 30049.91 points amid floods devastation and deepening political impasse.
However, the market failed to set the pace due to cautious trading. The KSE-100 opened at the week-end closing of 30015 and started upward march.
Investors thought are cautious to play safe and opt to square their positions as uncertainty over the political situation and the SBP Monetary Policy prevailed.
On the other hand, various developments taking place caused ripples across the political horizon. Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain suggested that four provinces — North Sindh, South Sindh, Central Sindh and East Sindh — could be created in Sindh without changing its name to allay concerns of Sindhi nationalists.
Moreover, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan reiterated that he will continue his movement till the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Mr Khan addressed a mammoth public meeting outside the Quaid-i-Azam’s mausoleum. Amid the slogan of ‘Go Nawaz Go’, the cricketer-turned-politician repeated for the umpteenth time that the prime minister would have to resign because neither Saudi Arabia nor ‘Gullu Butt’ could save him. “Time has come for the two parties taking turns to go…Nawaz Sharif, you will have to go,” he said.
Mr Khan said he had come to Karachi to unite its people divided on ethnic lines. “We want to make a new Pakistan to end injustices, where those who commit crimes and are involved in target killings will be taken to task.”
While he criticised the country’s two major parties, PML-N and PPP, and JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, he spared his nemesis, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, although it held a sit-in on Saturday in protest against a statement of two PTI leaders who had rejected new administrative units in Sindh.
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