KARACHI, June 11: After the Karachi Stock Exchange came down crashing in March, its claim to fame as the ‘best performing market in the world’ might sound a little frivolous. But compared to 10 major markets around the world, the KSE appears still to lead this year, in terms of performance.

From January 1 to end of May, the KSE-100 index gained 10.3 per cent. Closest to that was JKSE of Indonesia which rose by 8.8 per cent; followed by CAC 40 Index of France, which gained 7.8 per cent. Other markets that remained in the positive zone included Straits Times Index of Singapore that moved higher by 4.6 per cent and the FTSE-100 of UK, which edged up by 3.1 per cent. Indian stock index BSE-30 posted gain of 1.7 per cent.

Markets that remained in the negative territory during the first five months of the current year included: KLSE of Malaysia, which plunged by 5.1 per cent; Hang Seng of Hong Kong that slipped by 2.6 per cent; Nikkei 225 that declined by 1.8 per cent and the giant of the corporate world, Dow Jones Composite of USA, which fell by 1.4 per cent between January and May this year.

The KSE, though, outperformed major markets over the first five months period, but during the month of May it returned poor results with the Pakistani bourse down by 3.5 per cent that month. Only two other markets were in the negative zone during May: KLSE that dipped by 2.1 per cent and Hang Seng that tripped by 0.3 per cent. During May BSE-30 gained 9.1 per cent; followed by JKSE up 5.6 per cent; CAC 40 posting increase of 5.3 per cent; FTSE-100 up by 3.4 per cent and NIKKEI 225 and Dow Jones Composite, rising by 2.4 per cent each.

Parish the thought of the mid-March crisis that saw the KSE-index plunge by a staggering 2,500 points in two weeks and most of the small investors losing all their life time savings. Do not heed also the hazards ahead: perils of privatization particularly that of PTCL and the dreaded phase out of badla even before the margin financing has been in place. For the moment, the KSE still has something to cheer about: Over the five months since January this year, the Pakistani bourse can walk tall as “the best performing stock market in the world”.