KARACHI, Sept 14: Correction of 54 points during the past week in the stock market, forced weak holders to offload some of their positions, which went to reduce COT or badla investment by Rs900 million to Rs4.8 billion on Friday, analysts said.

“Due to this relatively lower financing demand, coupled with a liquid interbank market, rates at the KSE badla market fell to 10.4 per cent on Friday, compared to 11.1 per cent at the previous weekend,” InvestCap Securities said in their weekend badla report.

Analysts said that one development in the badla market was the rise in share of Pakistan State Oil’s carryover trade, which on September 12 touched Rs2 billion — a historic high for the state-owned oil marketing company.

IP Securities stated in its COT report that like in the regular market, no major fluctuations were witnessed in the COT market during the week.

Average COT rate continued to decline during the week and hovered within a range of 10.4pc to 11.1pc. Furthermore, the average COT investment and volumes also registered a decline of 5pc and 9pc respectively showing minimal interest of the investors in the badla market.

The top three key stocks were PSO, Hubco and PTCL. PSO price declined by 4pc during the week as the bullish rally in the scrip was coming to an end. Badla investment in PSO surged to the peak level of Rs2 billion due to the margin trading by weak holders in the market.

During the week, genuine buying continued in Hubco. Average COT volume and investment in Hubco declined by 23pc and 25pc week-on- week on the back of lower than expected cash dividends announced the previous week. Genuine buying interest in the PTCL scrip continued due to the high expectations from the FY02 results.

Punters interest remained high in MCB as average COT volume and investment shot up by 84.5pc and 87.6pc respectively.

Looking at the current market scenario, IP Securities said it expected average COT rate to remain rangebound and stay at current level.