Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday closed on strong positive note with healthy gains on the back of aggressive buying, mainly by local investors.

BRIndex100 gained 96.30 points or 3.02 percent to close at 3,280.89 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 3,302.17 and intraday low of 3,184.59 points. Volumes stood at 204.913 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 568.24 points or 3.50 percent to close at 16,779.75 points with a turnover of 152.028 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index surged by 866.03 points or 2.80 percent and closed at 31,837.30 points. Trading activities also improved as daily volumes on ready counter increased to 216.513 million shares as compared to 181.000 million shares traded on Wednesday.

The foreign investors however remained net sellers of equities worth $3.3 million. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 120 billion to Rs 6.049 trillion. Out of total 352 active scrips, 276 closed in positive and only 57 in negative while the value of 19 stocks remained unchanged.

Maple Leaf was the volume leader with 21.403 million shares and gained Rs 0.95 to close at Rs 23.83 followed by Hascol Petroleum that inched up by Rs 0.54 to close at Rs 15.50 with 21.109 million shares. Bata Pak and Sapphire Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 52.00 and Rs 51.11 respectively to close at Rs 1587.00 and Rs 732.67 while Pak Tobacco and Colgate Palmolive were the top losers declining by Rs 38.57 and Rs 25.00 respectively to close at Rs 1579.25 and Rs 1850.00.

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 122.82 points or 2.73 percent to close at 4,624.50 points with total turnover of 1.577 million shares.

BR Cement Index increased by 128.16 points or 3.58 percent to close at 3,703.10 points with 61.257 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index surged by 177.61 points or 2.58 percent to close at 7,046.62 points with 16.650 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 81.39 points or 1.85 percent to close at 4,477.16 points with 14.676 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 3,288.31 points, up 127.27 points or 4.02 percent with 37.471 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index gained 39.46 points or 5.55 percent to close at 750.24 points with 14.677 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market saw a jump of 1,038 points during the session and closed plus 866 points that was reflection of a combination of factors including 5 percent increase in the price of WTI, PIB yields trending below 9 percent and expectation of further rate cut by SBP in the coming monetary policy.

The ECC's consideration of issuance of Sukuk II also paved the way for index heavy weight HUBC to trade near upper circuit, after consolidating for past couple of sessions. Similarly, PSO leapt forward on the prospects of Sukuk II issuance to trade near upper circuit. Among Banks, MCB remained steadfast and with the apparent slow-down of selling pace in HBL and UBL from foreign investors, the Index found solid support from Banking sector.

Cement sector realized trading volumes of 60.9 million shares, followed by O&GMCs (27.3 million shares) and Banks (16.6 million shares).

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (up 201 points), E&P (up 150 points), Fertilizer (up 102 points), Cement (up 94 points) and O&GMCs (up 67 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include PPL (up 52 points), FFC (up 49 points), OGDC (up 45 points), UBL (up 45 points) and PSO (up 40 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include PAKT (down 11 points), COLG (down 03 points), HGFA (down 03 points), GLAXO (down 02 points) and JDWS (down 01 point).