Pakistan trust buys stocks

Islamabad: National Investment Trust, Pakistan's biggest money manager, bought stocks for the first time from a Rs20 billion (Dh9.34 million) fund announced this month to stabilise the market after a 58 per cent slump last year.

"We bought shares for the first time today [Tuesday] and will continue to buy at good rates and values," Tariq Iqbal Khan, chairman of the state-owned National Investment, said in a telephone interview from Karachi yesterday.

Pakistan shares fell for 13 consecutive sessions starting December 15 when the stock exchange ended a trading curb that had prevented the benchmark index from falling below its August 27 level of 9,144.93 points.

The drop in the benchmark index last year was the first annual decline in seven years.k

Pakistan's benchmark Karachi 100 Index rose 0.3 per cent to 6059.09 at the 3.30 pm local-time close. The gauge fell 1.7 per cent on Tuesday after a 6.8 per cent increase in the previous four sessions after National Investment said it would buy shares.

National Investment Trust said on January 2 it planned to buy shares in eight companies through the so-called State Enterprise Fund.