| Is the seemingly irrepressible optimism of the local Stock Exchanges a thermometer of good economic governance - as the government would have us believe - or simply a barometer of speculative greed? |
| Genuine investors would be well advised to read the report of the Task Force appointed by the Chairman Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan in April this year, to identify the reasons for the inordinate increase in share prices in the first quarter of this year, and their sudden collapse between 24th - 27th March 2005. |
| The four-member Task Force was given 30 days to submit its report. With more zeal than confidence, the Task Force made a brave effort to unravel the serpentine coils of trades on the stock exchange, a snake-pit in which it is often difficult for an outsider to distinguish the head of a transaction from its tail. The Task Force report took three months to prepare its report and even then admitted that its findings represented 'not the end of the investigation [but] the beginning.' [EXTRACT] |
| Published in DAWN 11 Nov. 2005, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006). |
