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  The National Investment (Unit) Trust is getting bigger and bigger. Boosted by growth in dividend income along with Rs1.45 billion earned from the difference between unit selling and buying price (element income), the country’s leading and oldest mutual fund saw profits jump 29 percent in the first nine months of current fiscal year. As its fund managers remained focused increasing their holdings, together with the growth in AUM and better take-home profits shared by the KSE listed companies, the fund’s dividend income increased to Rs1.57 billion in 9MFY11 as against Rs1.28 billion earned in the year-ago period. However, the expansion in fund portfolio slightly tailed off its capital gains. Backed by high appetite for equity securities and better performance of investment portfolio, the fund’s AUM reached Rs37 billion at the end of March, as against Rs32.9 billion same period a year earlier. “As the government has imposed capital gains tax, NIT’s fund managers ...

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  To say that Pakistan does not have a vibrant debt market would perhaps be an overstatement. A more appropriate expression would be that it’s ‘practically non-existent’. The reasons why this view has gained currency over the years are many; market prices of debt instruments are often different from broker rates, there are valuation issues, and the listing of corporate debt takes a lot of time – often six months, according to some market participants – amongst other issues. In addition, according to Nasim Beg, Chief Executive of Arif Habib Investments Limited, banks as trustees of TFCs “have failed to take timely action” in several cases of default. Beg also blames banks to have formed a “restricted-club” that doesn’t want to trade debt papers through the KSE’s recently launched Bond Automated Trading System (BATS). Thankfully, however, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan is now trying to tackle these issues head on, amongst others, ...

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  Talk about disappointment. Just when the bulls at Karachi’s equity market were expected to make further inroads by regaining their grounds, they seem to have drained out of energy. KSE-100’s movement last week also smacked the theory that all good news is boon for the market. Why else would the market pay no heed to the improvement in the large scale manufacturing index that turned positive after several months? Why would it also ignore the continuous improvement in the current account balance despite a nearly 8 percent month-on-month hike in average global oil prices in February? Similarly, why should the fiscal measures ordered by the president fail to stimulate the market? Even the onset of margin trading – which is marked by the so-called ‘bullish bias’ -- failed to spark an upward rally. Quite noticeably, the answer is in KSE’s asymmetrical relationship with foreign investors. Ever since the FIPI inflows started tapering off, the ...