February 5, 2006	Sunday	Muharram 6, 1427

KARACH, Feb 4: Despite sustained bull-run on the stock market amid massive volumes, the capped CFS market witnessed a relative quiet during the last week, analysts said.

“Borrowers were not inclined to cross the capped CFS ceiling of Rs25bn, although rising volumes in most of the leading shares needed more funds beyond it,” they said.

The mid-week whispering about the increase in funding under CFS did push stock prices further higher on the current actives but only was followed by selling as there was money beyond the official limit, some others said.

While investment under CFS remained unchanged around Rs24.6bn, CFS rates showed fresh fractional fall of one basis point at 17.6 per cent.

CFS investment of the Lahore Stock Exchange also remained pegged at the last week’s level of Rs2.3bn, but funding rates rose by 90 basis points at 17.5 per cent from 16.6 per cent a week earlier.

The weighted average stock futures spread for the ruling contracts suffered a fall of 86 basis points at 16.02 per cent. But on the other hand the increase in open interest was attributed to sharp rise in share values on active buying.

Analysts said the open interest earlier in the week was around Rs12.8bn, but steadily rose to Rs17bn at the end of the week owing to settlement of the runoff January contracts.