Bulls continued to maintain their grip on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), as the benchmark KSE-100 Index gained over 1% during the trading session on Thursday.

At close, the benchmark index settled at 58,899.84, up by 701.08 points or 1.20%

Earlier at 3pm, it was hovering at 58,909.25 level, an increase of 710.49 points or 1.22%.

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Across-the-board buying was witnessed, with index-heavy sectors including automobile assemblers, cement, chemical, commercial banks, fertilizer, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs and pharmaceuticals trading in the positive zone.

On Wednesday, the benchmark index crossed the 58,000 level for the first time in history to settle at 58,198.76, up by 827.17 points or 1.44%.

The ongoing bullish trend comes amid the country’s improved economic indicators and the interim government’s successful negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the first review, which will unlock $700 million in funding.

“The market is expecting a decline in the interest rate in the upcoming Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting,” Sana Tawfik, an analyst at Arif Habib Limited (AHL), told Business Recorder. “The decline in interest rate would shift liquidity from fixed income towards equities,” she said.

“Moreover, overall economic indicators are also improving, the current account deficit has declined while the Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) Index has also shown meagre growth,” she said.

The analyst said that the valuations remain attractive.

“The release of IMF tranche, which is expected in the first week of December, would bolster the bourse further,” said Tawfik.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee ended its five-session appreciation run against the US dollar as it lost 0.05% in the inter-bank market on Thursday. As per the State Bank of Pakistan, the local currency settled at 285.27, a decrease of Re0.66.

Volume on the all-share index increased to 669.2 million from 596.2 million a session before.

The value of shares rose to Rs25.2 billion from Rs22 billion in the previous session.

WorldCall Telecom remained the volume leader with 40.2 million shares, followed by Telecard Limited with 32.4 million shares and Pak Refinery with 32.3 million shares.

Shares of 393 companies were traded on Thursday, of which 227 registered an increase, 140 recorded a fall, while 26 remained unchanged.