· A positive session was observed at the PSX today to kick off the business week as another Buyback of shares was announced by one of the largest conglomerates, Lucky Cement Limited (LUCK), igniting the investor confidence to push up the shares price to the upper circuit and keeping the entire Cement Sector in the limelight. As well as another Positive announcement by Habib Bank Limited (HBL’s) sponsors’ intention to acquire additional shares of HBL from the open market drove the bulls to take charge by changing the market sentiments. The benchmark KSE-100 opened in the green zone and continued to trade with optimistic sentiments throughout the trading session, reaching an intraday high of 409.30 points. Investor activity increased considerably as decent volumes were recorded across the board, with third-tier equities dominating the volume board.

· The index closed at 41,927.64 up by 346.79pts (+0.83% DoD). Sectors contributing to the performance include Commercial Banks (+207.2pts), Cement (+122.1pts), Fertilizer (+49.5pts), Inv. Banks / Inv. Cos. / Securities Cos. (+23.4pts), and Paper & Board (+19.4pts).

· Volumes decreased from 268.1mn shares to 220.0mn shares (-17.9% DoD). The average traded value also decreased by -27.7% to USD 22.9mn as against USD 31.6mn.

· Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes are FFL, SILK, MLCF, TPLP and OLPL.