Predictive Ability of Value-at-Risk Methods: Evidence from the Karachi Stock Exchange-100 Index

Value-at-risk (VaR) is a useful risk measure broadly used by financial institutions all over the world. VaR has been extensively used to measure systematic risk exposure in developed markets like of the US, Europe and Asia. This paper analyzes the accuracy of VaR measure for Pakistan’s emerging stock market using daily data from the Karachi Stock Exchange-100 index January 1992 to June 2008. We computed VaR by employing data on annual basis as well as for the whole 17 year period. Overall we found that VaR measures are more accurate when KSE index return volatility is estimated by GARCH (1,1) model especially at 95% confidence level. In this case the actual loss of KSE-100 index exceeds VaR in only two years 1998 and 2006. At 99% confidence level no method generally gives accurate VaR estimates. In this case ‘equally weighted moving average’, ‘exponentially weighted moving average’ and ‘GARCH’ based methods yield accurate VaR estimates in nearly half of the number of years. On average for the whole period 95% VaR is estimated to be about 2.5% of the value of KSE-100 index. That is on average in one out of 20 days KSE-100 index loses at least 2.5% of its value. We also investigate the asset pricing implication of downside risk measured by VaR and expected returns for decile portfolios sorted according to VaR of each stock. We found that portfolios with higher VaR have higher average returns. Therefore VaR as a measure of downside risk is associated with higher returns.Downside risk; Emerging Markets; Value-at-Risk.

The Conditional Relationship between Risk and Return: Evidence from an Emerging Market

This paper examine whether the conditional relationship between betaand return proposed by Pettengill et al. (1995) exist in an emergingstock market namely Pakistan. We applied this approach to KarachiStock Exchange (KSE-100) returns data over the period of 1992-2008,and found that there is a flat unconditional relationship between betaand return which is consistent with previous research. And when wesplit our sample into up market and down market return months, ourresult supported the conditional relationship

Predictive ability of Value-at-Risk methods: evidence from the Karachi Stock Exchange-100 Index

Value-at-risk (VaR) is a useful risk measure broadly used by financial institutions all over the world. VaR is popular among researchers, practitioners and regulators of financial institutions. VaR has been extensively used for to measure systematic risk exposure in developed markets like of the US, Europe and Asia. In this paper we analyze the accuracy of VaR measure for Pakistan’s emerging stock market using daily data from the Karachi Stock Exchange-100 index January 1992 to June 2008. We computed VaR by employing data on annual basis as well as for the whole 17 year period. Overall we found that VaR measures are more accurate when KSE index return volatility is estimated by GARCH (1,1) model especially at 95% confidence level. In this case the actual loss of KSE-100 index exceeds VaR in only two years 1998 and 2006. At 99% confidence level no method generally gives accurate VaR estimates. In this case ‘equally weighted moving average’, ‘exponentially weighted moving average’ and ‘GARCH’ based methods yield accurate VaR estimates in nearly half of the number of years. On average for the whole period 95% VaR is estimated to be about 2.5% of the value of KSE-100 index. That is on average in one out of 20 days KSE-100 index loses at least 2.5% of its value. We also investigate the asset pricing implication of downside risk measured by VaR and expected returns for docile portfolios sorted according to VaR of each stock. We found that portfolios with higher VaR have higher average returns. Therefore VaR as a measure of downside risk is associated with higher returns.Downside risk; Emerging Markets; Value-at-Risk

Gender Representation in Pakistani and British English Fiction: A Corpus Based Study

The present study aims at the comparative stylistic analysis of gender presentation in terms of status and attitude in Pakistani and British English Fiction. The data are based on the instances of ‘he is’ and ‘she is’ in relation to the complements following them. The methodology adopted for the research is corpus based and deals with the data both qualitatively and quantitatively, however, with a major inclination towards qualitative analysis. The instances of ‘He is’ and ‘She is’ along with the  concordance words are derived from PEF and BEF corpora consisted of one million words for each through Antconc 3.2.2. The data are further manually analyzed in MS Excel and then categorized in relation to Status and attitude linked with ‘he’ and ‘she’ in both PEF and BEF. It is found that the gender representation is quite typical of the culture it relates to. The presentation of ‘he is’ and ‘she is’ in BEF is of positive and balanced nature where as that of in PEF is based on the superiority and inferiority of men and women respectively. The research is a contribution in the better understanding and interpretation of Pakistani English fiction and British English fiction

Project implementation profile tool applied to upgrading informal settlements programme projects

Purpose: This research reviews the Project Implementation Profile (PIP) and explores its relevance to Upgrading Informal Settlements Programme (UISP) type projects in Cape Town. The research aims to: • Identify the most common PIP Critical Success Factors (CSF) for UISP projects, • Compare the common PIP Critical Success Factors (CSF) for UISP projects to the Construction Sector CSF • Evaluate if the PIP tool is applicable to UISP projects. • Determine if there any other critical success factors that need to be added to the CSF list that is critical to the UISP Project success Approach: A literature review was conducted to assist in identifying the common CSF in the Constructions Sector. A survey questionnaire was sent out to relevant UISP Project Managers. The survey questionnaire was based on the PIP questionnaire with additional questions regarding to the effectiveness of the PIP tool on UISP projects. The intent of the survey questionnaire is firstly to establish the common CSF for UISP projects and then evaluate the PIP effectiveness on UISP projects. Findings: Based on the research results, it was found that the high scoring CSF for UISP projects were Project Mission, Client Consultation, Technical Tasks, Monitoring and Feedback, Personal. When the high scoring CSF was compared to the Literature Based Construction Sector CSF, the following common CSF was established: Monitoring and Feedback, Client Consultation and Technical Tasks. Practical Implications: This research will give an indication of the high and low scoring CSF relevant to UISP projects, which project managers and Managers in the Human Settlements industry can use to evaluate their UISP or Breaking New Ground (BNG) housing projects. Furthermore, the PIP tool may be utilised more frequently as a project quality success assurance tool in the organisation. The PIP tool has been tested and verified in a number of different industries in previous studies but never in its application to UISP or BNG projects

Social Value of the Child

This pictorial presentation of childhood aims to provide a visual depiction of the social value of the children in rural Punjabi socio-cultural context. I took these photographs in a village in south Punjab, Pakistan while doing an ethnographic inquiry about infant healthcare belief practices and the social value of the child in rural Punjab

Motherhood: A Resource for Social Resilience and Holistic Wellbeing

Background: The desire to be a mother is much more than a reproductive instinct in pro-baby (pro-natal) society. Motherhood is a complex phenomenon that encompasses psychological, social, and cultural aspects of a woman's holisticwell-being. A woman's socio-cultural visibility is enhanced through motherhood, which also strengthens her psychological status, enriches her spiritual experience, and ensures her economic sustainability. All of these aspects of motherhoodcontribute to her transformative social experience, which allows her to achieve social resilience and holistic wellbeing. This paper, with an emphasis on motherhood as a psycho-social phenomena and an experience of social resilience for a woman,provides a reflective analysis of my qualitative investigations (2016, 2017a, 2017b, 2018a, 2018b, 2019, 2021) studying the value of the child and motherhood. Objectives: This paper pursues the following research questions; how does the valueof the child contribute to the social experience of a woman in pro-baby societies and how does the motherhood contribute as a resource for social resilience and holistic wellbeing of the woman? Method: The paper provides a reflective analysisof seven qualitative studies that I did between 2016 and 2021 (three conference papers and four journal publications). These studies shed light on the importance of the child and motherhood in the Pakistani socio-cultural context. However, in thispaper, I am representing these studies to highlight motherhood as a resource for social resilience contributing to holistic well-being. To that end, I organized the findings of these research into a nexus of psychological, social, and culturaldimensions of motherhood and the value of the child for a woman in Pakistani context. Results: An interpretation of motherhood as a phenomenon provided the script of social experience of women as mothers translated into social resilience– a pathway to holistic wellbeing. The physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, and familial dimensions of women's well-being are interconnected by a triangulation of psychological, social, and cultural experiences of motherhood. In this regard, motherhood shapes social resilience as an experience of change and challenge that leads to continuity and stability in pro-baby context. Conclusion: The findings of this paper can help to raise (research and practice) understanding regarding the social dimensions of resilience and holistic wellbeing. Motherhood is more than just a physical or psychological experience for a woman. It is a phenomenon that should be investigated and explained in the context of social experience and its impact on women's social resilience

Tona, the Folk Healing Practices in Rural Punjab, Pakistan

Consulting religion and magic for healing is an important aspect of healing belief practices. Magical thinking provides space for culturally cognitive patterns to integrate belief practices. Tona, a layman’s approach to healing that describes magico-religious (fusion of magic and religion) and secular magic practices in rural Punjab, Pakistan, is an example of magico-religious and secular magical practice. The purpose of this study is to analyse tona as it is practiced to cure childhood diseases (sokra and sharwa) in Muslim Punjab, Pakistan. This is an ethnographic study I conducted using participant observation and unstructured interviews as the primary research methods. The study produced an in-depth analysis of tona as a healing belief practice in the light of Frazer’s principles of magical thinking and sympathetic magic. The study provides a deeper understanding of the magical thinking in magico-religious healing belief practices