March 26, 2006	Sunday	Safar 25, 1427

KARACHI, March 25: The weighted average CFS rates on the Karachi Stock Exchange last week were maintained on the higher side around 18 per cent owing to increase in demand for funds in a rising market, analysts said.

As a result, CFS investment also remained on the upper limit at Rs24.6bn as compared to previous week’s Rs24.5bn and so did on the Lahore Stock Exchange at Rs2.3bn, they said.

But on the other hand stock futures spread suffered a sharp decline at 6.1 per cent from the previous week’s 14 per cent because of short positions taken by a number of investors for no apparent negative reasons.

The open interest in stock futures was firmly held slightly below the last week’s level of Rs15.5bn as some of the leading investors lowered their stake in future spreads after squaring their long positions, some others said.

Owing to the proximity of start of trading in the April settlements from March 27, it suffered a modest fall of Rs1 at the fag-end of the week.