12 September 2004	Sunday	26 Rajab 1425

KARACHI, Sept 11: Carryover rates on the Karachi Stock Exchange last week fell further by 70 basis points at 7.3 per cent from the previous eight per cent owing to fresh decline in the share values followed by squaring of positions by the weakholders.

"Equities prices fell by over three per cent during the last week on panic- selling after the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) announced phasing out of badla trading system to replace it with margin financing", says a leading stock analyst at a research house.

But on the other hand the decline both in carryover rates and investment was sharp at the Lahore Stock Exchange as both fell by 380 basis points and 22 per cent from 11.8 to 8 per cent and at Rs2.5 billion respectively.

Carryover investment and volume on the KSE suffered a decline of Rs1.8 billion at Rs25.2 billion and volume to 471m shares from 493m shares, he said.

In a falling stock market demand for fresh funds generally decline as no one wants to invest more than his financial capacity because of risks involved, some others claim. As a result, carryover rates of some of the leading stocks were quoted lower below seven per cent.