March 04, 2007	Sunday	Safar 14, 1428

KARACHI, March 3: The fund borrowing rates under the CFS on the Karachi Stock Exchange last week suffered a fractional fall of 16 basis points at 12.5 per cent as compared to previous 12.65 per cent as investors were not inclined to go beyond specified limits in a falling market, analysts said.

“The crash of China’s Shanghai bourse and its negative fallout on the global markets including Pakistan and financial worries associated with it kept investors away from the CFS markets until sanity returns to regional bourses,” they added.The fall in demand for fresh funds was also well-reflected in the CFS investment figure, which fell by 6.9 per cent at Rs48.1 billion, Ali Khizar, a leading analyst at J.S. Global Capital said.

After remaining steady well above the Rs50 figure for the last couple of weeks, the figure fell below this level during the week amid rumours of offloading of share portfolio by some of the foreign funds in bank and oil shares.

The open interest in the ruling March contract on the other hand showed a sharp increase of 36 per cent at Rs9.3 billion as the cost of rollover of positions in future contracts remained low around 3 per cent, Ali Khizar said.