April 13, 2008	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 6, 1429

KARACHI, April 12: The CFS rates on the Karachi Stock Exchange last week showed a fractional fall of three basis points at 11.87 per cent as demand for fresh credit lines was below average levels.

“After the advent of CFS Mk-II from Monday, investors could not precisely decide where to invest a massive access to new funding source,” said a leading analyst Saad Arshad Raja at the Invest Cap.

Under the new funding mechanism investors may go as high as Rs232 billion out of the total bank liquidity of about Rs548 billion minus 80 billion of the foreign banks, which do not invest in the share business, another analyst Samiullah Tariq said.

Incidentally, they could not cross the previous limit of Rs55 billion as their total intake was marginally higher at Rs54.58 billion during the week.

“The mid-week violence in the city may have curtailed the demand for funds but indications are that the higher limit may not be touched in the near future even in a robust market ruling well above the index level of 15,000 points,” he said.

Bulk of the CFS funding was shared by the National Bank, Pakistan Oilfields, Pakistan Petroleum, Arif Habib Securities and the newcomer Engro Chemical, which combined accounted for 48 per cent of the total.

The open market interest on the other hand posted a sharp increase of 13.6 per cent at Rs18.58 billion on the April futures counter from the previous Rs16.35 billion.

Future spreads also rose by 222 basis points despite mid-week fall to 2.51 per cent but finished higher at 9.12 per cent at the end of the last week.