June 29, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 24, 1429

KARACHI, June 28: The CFS rates on the Karachi Stock Exchange last week soared by 359 basis points to 20.33 per cent owing to tight money market in the backdrop of a rising share market, said Ayub Ansari, a leading analyst at the Invest Cap.

He said the market stabilisation steps, notably increase in upper cap to 10 per cent taken by the SECP to arrest persistent fall in the stock market followed by a buying euphoria, which created more demand for fresh credit lines.

“A 6.1 per cent rise in CFS investment at Rs32.3 billion also reflects this phenomenon as investors opted for higher leveraged positions amid perception of lower downside risks as compared to upside potential because of market stabilisation measures,” he added.

The top five scrips, which accounted for 45 per cent of the total CFS investment were led by National Bank followed by Pakistan Oilfields, Arif Habib Securities, Adamjee Insurance and D.G. Khan Cement.

The combined open interest of both the June and July settlements on the cleared list was around Rs18.16 billion.

While June figure fell sharply lower by 37.2 per cent at Rs9.9 billion, July figure stood at Rs8.2 billion but the future spreads were quoted at 21.9 per cent.