The purpose of the study was to measure the risk the return relationship of inflation and industrial production as macroeconomic variables against stock returns. The study extends the literature by using the GARCH model instead of the traditional Arbitrage Pricing Theory or the Capital Asset Pricing Model. The sample consisted of 50 companies listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) in Pakistan. The data collection encompassed the period from July 1998 to December 2008. The macro economic indicators were inflation rate and growth rate of industrial production. The techniques included regression and first order Augmented Dick Fuller test (since it was a time series). The authors found a significant relationship between the macro economic indicators of inflation and industrial production against the sampled KSE returns. The sensitivity coefficients of industrial production and inflation were negative which indicated real sector risk and inflation unfavorably impacted the sampled KSE returns.

Financial industries are rapidly accepting the Islamic banking system. Using theory of reasoned action (TRA) model the study investigates the three factors including attitude, religiosity and subjective norms in measuring the intention of customers to adopt Islamic banking products along with moderating role of pricing. The sample of 220 banks consumers from two cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad are gathered using convenient sampling. Regression results suggest that all three factors influence the intention of customers in buying Islamic banking products. Moreover, pricing moderates the relationship in developing intention of customer to adopt Islamic personal financing in the context of religiosity.The finding of the study identifies that Islamic bankers should adopt pricing policy based upon fair practices of Shariah. In addition awareness to people about Islamic products through marketing is essential in clearing their misconceptions towards investment in Islamic products.