KARACHI, July 23: The Carry Over Trade (COT) rates on the Karachi Stock Exchange soared by 290 basis points at 14.4 per cent as compared to previous 11.5 per cent during the last week owing to tight money market, but the State Bank kept the cut-off rates static on all the three tenures treasury bills in the recent auction.

“Over the week, the badla has become a game of chance as only first few contenders managed to lay their hands on it”, says a leading analyst commenting on the availability of funds.

But on the other hand COT investment stayed unchanged at the previous level of Rs12 billion, although open interest in the futures market showed a modest decline, apparently making room for rolling of positions during the next week, he said.

However, COT business fell by seven per cent to 107m shares from the previous 115m shares because of heavy leverage done in overvalued shares, notably Pakistan Oilfields and PSO.

Weighted average badla rate on the Lahore Exchange on the other hand declined to 9.9 per cent from the previous 10.8 per cent as investment further shrank to Rs867m from the previous week’s Rs.969m.

The KSE also witnessed a decline in open market interest where the spread fell into single-digit at 6.4 per cent from the previous week’s 14.1 per cent.

“The current row over the badla mode of financing has taken steam out of the market owing to a cap on outstanding positions at Rs12bn and at time when the corporate announcements from some mega issues are around”, another analyst said.