KARACHI: Pakistan equities closed Tuesday lower after benchmark KSE100 Index met resistance at 44000. Market opened positive and touched a high of +215 points as institutional participation was witnessed mainly in the cement stocks on back of the news that there has been an additional increase of Rs10/bag in the cement price of northern region. However index declined later as investors opted to book profits, making an intraday low of -169 points to close at 43,705 points level. KSE100 Index tested intra-day high over 44000 psychological barrier however failed to sustain that level for long as losses in other index heavy names including Habib Bank (HBL) losing 1.6 percent, MCB Bank (MCB) losing 0.5 percent, Pakistan Oilfileds (POL) losing 0.5 percent and Engro Corp (ENGRO) losing 1.2 percent dented the Index. Later, Cements too pared morning gains on profit-taking and closed mostly in red. On the corporate front, Engro Polymer EPCL PA losing 4.6 percent hit lower price limit with investors fearing of a possible right issue in pipeline in the coming days. Elixir Securities’ analyst Ali Raza sees news-flow on economic and politics front to guide market direction. Overall volumes stood at 177 million shares, while traded value stood at $ 73 million. On the political front, as per news National Accountability Bureau (NAB) approved filing of three supplementary corruption references against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family in connection with three corruption references filed earlier by the anti-graft body in an accountability court. Research analyst Maaz Mulla expects the market to depict a similar trend and recommend investors to see any upside in the market as an opportunity to sell. FCCL (+1.37%) led the volume chart for the day with more than 12mn shares exchanging hands. Today’s major contribution to the index came from DGKC (+2.47%), HCAR (+4.27%), BAFL (+1.85%) and FCCL (+1.37%) contributing +46pts to the index. Banking space closed lower than its previous day close as heavyweights such as HBL (-1.59%), NBP (-0.25%) and MCB (-0.46%) closed in the red zone. E&P sector extended its downward trajectory where PPL (-0.30%) and POL (-0.52%) lost value to close in the red. Published in Daily Times, March 7th 2018.