GEO 436 KARACHI: Pakistani stocks fell to a two-and-a-half month low on Tuesday because of investor uncertainty over the next fiscal year’’s budget and political tensions. The budget for the 2010/11 fiscal year is due to be announced on June 5. The Karachi Stock Exchange’’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index ended 2.67 percent, or 258.97 points, lower at 9,428.44 points on turnover of 135.44 million shares. The KSE-index ended at 9,419.43 points on March 3. “Local investors are nervous about what measures may be announced in the upcoming budget and also about the current political scenario,” said Sajid Bhanji, a broker at dealers Arif Habib Ltd. The government is expected to announce the replacement of a general sales tax with value-added tax in the budget, as required by the International Monetary Fund. Analysts are wary about its impact because they say the government has not done enough to make taxpayers aware of what it entails. Dealers said investors were also cautious following the Supreme Court’’s summoning of Law Minister Babar Awan over the delay in re-opening Swiss cases. In the currency market, the rupee weakened to 84.67/73 to the dollar compared with Monday’’s close of 84.48/58 because of pressure from import payments. In the money market, overnight rates rose to 12.40 percent, compared with Monday’’s close of between 11 percent and 11.50 percent and dealers said they were waiting for the PIB (Pakistan Investment Bond) auction scheduled for Wednesday. The target for the PIB auction is 10 billion rupees. Dealers said there were no scheduled inflows or outflows on Tuesday. The next scheduled inflow is on Thursday, worth 12.5 billion rupees.
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