Karachi, Jan 26: The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) holders were urged to strive for raising standards of Pakistani capital markets through continued exercising high professional values and conduct.

It was stated by the Managing Director for the CFA Institute Asia Pacific, Dr Jan Ray Squires, on Thursday.

A press release issued by the CFA Association of Pakistan (CFFAP) said that Dr Squires was addressing the 3rd charter and excellence award ceremony of the CFFAP.

Later, awards were distributed, which were based on response about ratings from leading fund managers of the country. Jahangir Siddiqui (JS) Capital markets was declared as Pakistan’s best equity brokerage house for the year 2004-05. The head of Equity and Broking at JS Capital markets, Mohammad Sohail, was conferred upon the award of “Best Analyst” but he chose to withdraw from the category as this would have been his third consecutive year of receiving this award. United Bank Limited was awarded the Corporate Finance Transaction of the Year 2004-2005, and Corporate Finance House of the year 2004-2005 awards. Murad Ansari of KASB Securities was declared “Best Equity Research Analyst.”

Dr Squires welcomed the new CFA holders to the community of over 67,000 CFA charter holders in 120 countries across the world.

The chief guest on the occasion, M A Lodhi, managing director of the Karachi Stock Exchange, predicted a promising and challenging path ahead for the bourses of the country. He stressed on the CFA community to play a proactive role and work alongside the stock exchanges and the regulators for further development of the markets.