KARACHI: After an early morning inertia that saw the KSE-100 index slip by 81 points, the bulls were back with a vengeance to start afresh their northbound journey.

Investors began buying across the sectors but mainly in banks, fertiliser, exploration and production, which saw the index storm past 32,000 levels after 53 sessions to post massive gains of 628.56 points (1.99 per cent) and settle at 32,184.03. Intra-day, the index touched a high of 680 points.

Almost all the traders and analysts attributed the rejuvenation of investors’ interest to the central bank’s Pakistan Investment Bond auction results on Wednesday in which cutoff yield were down in range of 90-130 basis points, enabling investors to take a view on interest rates going forward.

Further, the Ministry of Finance geared up to remove hurdles in the issuance of Rs200 billion worth Pakistan Energy Sukuk-II in its meeting with lenders which triggered enthusiasm for equity investment.

The E&P stocks also tur­ned strong as the internatio­nal crude prices stayed above the levels seen a day ago.

While the insurance companies took it as an opportunity to book profit with sale of stocks worth $2.18 million, broker proprietary trading saw major buying of shares valued at $1.69m. Volumes increased 37pc over the previous day to 136.5m shares from 99.4m shares while the traded value also jumped 48pc to reach $37.7m, from $25.4m.

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included Lotte Chemical, Pakistan International Bulk Terminal Ltd, TRG Pakis­tan, Maple Leaf Cement Factory (MLCF) and K-Electric, which formed 34pc of total volumes.

Cements led the rally on Thursday where Lucky (LUCK), MLCF, Fauji and D.G. Khan Cement witnessed intense buying that pushed up their stock values.

Scripwise, the leading gainers were Engro Corpor­ation, up 4.53pc, LUCK 3.73pc, Fauji Fertiliser Company 1.73pc, Engro Fertiliser 2.41pc, Dawood Hercules 1.79pc, Pakistan Petroleum Ltd 2.25pc, Pakistan State Oil 5pc, Oil and Gas Development Company 1.05pc, Pakistan Oilfields Ltd 1.37pc, Habib Bank Ltd 1.62pc, Meezan Bank Ltd 3.70pc, Bank Al Habib Ltd 1.19pc and United Bank Ltd 0.72pc.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2019