Stocks fall amid political uncertainty

Shares closed slightly down on Tuesday in a range-bound session despite a decline in international oil prices. Topline Securities said the investors’ interest stayed concentrated within the exploration and production sector where Pakistan Petroleum Ltd and Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd closed higher. That was because the former told a briefing of analysts that its block in Abu Dhabi has several known discoveries and that the company expects to drill the first well next year. According to Arif Habib Ltd, the index opened in the red zone on account of political uncertainty. But investors jumped back into action later in the day and pulled the benchmark into the green territory. Profit-taking commenced in the final hour of trading and caused the index to close in red. As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 42,796.85 points, down 53.98 points or 0.13 per cent from the preceding session. The trading volume increased 1.7pc to 188.7 million shares while the traded value went up 23pc to $33.4m on a day-on-day basis.