KARACHI, Sept 7: Scarcely believable but true. The Karachi Stock market has stood out as the ‘best performing stock market’ amongst some of the top global equity markets — both on a month basis (August) and over the previous eight month period (Jan-Aug) this year.

Given that the period includes the dreadful March crisis, when in just seven trading sessions between March 16 and 23, the KSE-100 index had plunged by 24 per cent or by as many as 2545 points from 10,510 to 7965 level, the overall eight-month fait accompli shows the resilience of the Pakistani bourse, or is that an indication of the extent of its volatility?

World stock markets have generally remained upbeat this year. Bulls have continued to dominate most bourses. On an eight months period since January, the KSE-100 index saw a steep rise of 25.4 per cent, which was way ahead of the second best, Mumbai stock exchange’s BSE-30 index, which gained 18.2 per cent. Some of the other global markets that saw their index climbing included: France’s CAC-40 index, up by 15.1 per cent; Strait Times Index of Singapore steadier by 10.1 per cent and FTSE-100 stronger by 10 per cent. Other indices though with less pronounced gains included: Japan’s Nikkei-225 up by 8 per cent; JKSE of Indonesia firmer by 5 per cent; Hang Seng of Hong Kong higher by 4.7 per cent; Dow Jones Composite rising by 1.8 per cent and KLSE of Malaysia recording a minor gain of under one per cent.

A comparative study prepared by First National Equities (FNE) also showed that during the month of August, the KSE-100 index rose by a handsome 8.6 per cent, which translated to a total of 618 points. The index closed at 7797. Among the above selected global markets nearly half faltered during August. Those included the bourses of US; Malaysia; France; Singapore and Indonesia. Markets that posted minor gains included those of Japan; Bombay; US and Hong Kong.

Nikkei 225 got to be the second good gainer with a rise of 4.3 per cent. BSE-30 was up by 2.2 per cent. FTSE 100 and Hang Seng edged higher by a minor 0.3 and 0.2 per cent, respectively.

JKSE was the top loser during August with the index down 11.2 per cent; followed by loss of 3.3 per cent in Strait Times Index; 2.5 per cent in KLSE; 1.2 per cent in CAC-40 index and Dow Jones Industrial Average, which shed 1.1 per cent.

The Karachi bourse started out the month of August in a volatile mood as the KSE-100 index hit the month low of 6856 level, though recovering quickly to begin the climb. The index depicted a healthy gain of 618 points to end the month at 7796.86 points, which happened to be the highest level since the mid- March crisis. But unlike the last bull-run, surprisingly, all quarters are maintaining a silence on the matter. No one is inclined to claim credit for the superb performance of the Pakistani bourse this year, lest the same party might have to take the blame for the market’s decline, if that comes along. Among the several lessons that the March crisis has taught the people in the Government; market participants, stakeholders and monitors, is this one that would be long remembered: Not to wave the flags too high.