KARACHI: Acting upon the old adage of “buy on rumours, sell on news,” investors on Thursday offloaded their positions following a long bull run ending with the receipt of $1.2 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Topline Securities said the IMF news helped the benchmark index make an intraday high of 456 points before closing in the red territory.

Data from National Clearing Company showed mutual funds and “other organisations” led the selling spree and disposed of their positions that they had built in the post-Eid rally.

According to Arif Habib Ltd, the dip in the index will allow more liquidity to flow into the market. The upside should resume in the coming sessions, it said, adding that corrections are healthy and part of bull markets.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 45,266.96 points, down 247.99 points or 0.54 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume increased 8.6pc to 489.1 million shares. The traded value went up 10.6pc to Rs14.5bn on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included WorldCall Telecom Ltd (55.5m shares), TPL Properties Ltd (42.1m shares), K-Electric Ltd (30.4m shares), Unity Foods Ltd (21.2m shares) and Pakistan Refinery Ltd (16.5m shares).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs61.40), Khyber Textile Mills Ltd (Rs42.91), Ismail Industries Ltd (Rs39.56), Blessed Textiles Ltd (Rs26.25) and Sitara Chemical Industries Ltd (Rs13.79).

Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs59.49), Mehmood Textile Mills Ltd (Rs57.75), Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs50), Bata Pakistan Ltd (Rs23.79) and Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (Rs19.09).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $1.18m.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2023