The weighted average badla rate at the Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE), however, declined during the week by 40 basis points to 19.4 percent on Friday. The badla investment at the LSE also decreased by 4 percent to Rs 5.1 billion on last day of the week.
The badla investment during the last week also picked up pace as share prices continued their upward drive.
Badla rates in all the stocks continued to flirt with the upper limit of 18 percent. At this record-high level of the KSE-100 Index, the continuous rise in share prices has allowed badla borrowers to consistently be able to borrow at close to 18 percent and survive happily.
Unofficial badla (outside market badla) is also being carried out, and so is margin financing. Investors are also leveraging themselves using stock futures. And even with all these alternative methods of financing available, badla rates at the KSE are as high as they can go.
The KSE badla volume fell on a weekend to weekend basis to 432 million shares last Friday versus 443 million shares on the previous Friday.
An analyst from Investcapital Securities, said that there was a time when such kinds of badla statistics, ie rate at upper limit and investment at record level, would have created some sort of hesitation in the minds of market players. However, the ongoing bull-run seems unphased by any sort of numbers being churned out from the badla market. We believe that badla rates will continue to remain at high levels.