Stocks extend losses amid rising political heat

Trading on the stock exchange opened on a lacklustre note on Monday amid investors’ concerns about the local and international political situation, said JS Global. The falling value of the rupee against the dollar as well as a rising level of confrontation between the government and the opposition played the role of a dampener. “Going forward, we expect the market to further deteriorate over macro-economic concerns and the geopolitical situation. We, therefore, recommend investors to adopt a cautious approach,” it added. According to Arif Habib Ltd, the session stayed range-bound as the index shed points towards the end of trading because of political unrest. Volumes declined dramatically in the main-board shares but decent trading was recorded in third-tier stocks. As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,755.45 points, down 193.05 points or 0.46 per cent from the preceding session. The trading volume decreased 56.1pc to 144.3 million shares while the traded value went down 51.5pc to $21.3m on a day-on-day basis.