Market opened on a positive note and continued the momentum it showed at the end of last week, with complete disregard to political uncertainty, beginning of rollover week as well as Pakistan maintaining status quo on FATF’s grey list. This being a short week due to an scheduled off on Friday and ongoing result rally on the back of growth in corporate earnings, main board (with the exception of Banking sector stocks) have been contributing positively to the Index. Cement sector went boisterous on the back of announcement of financial results of LUCK early morning, as well as an increase in Cement price / bag in South region. Among O&GMCs, PSO spiked back to recent highs and close at that level in lieu of better expectation of earnings scheduled to be announced tomorrow. Among scrips, MLCF topped the volumes with 48.5M shares, followed by POWER (38.3M) and FCCL (30.9M).

· The Index closed at 41,850pts as against 41,266pts showing an increase of 585pts (+1.4% DoD). Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (+236pts), Technology (+53pts), O&GMCs (+44pts), Power (+39pts) and Inv Banks (+37pts).

· Volumes increased from 354.5mn shares to 487.2mn shares (+37% DoD). Average traded value also increased by 37% to reach US$ 133.6mn as against US$ 96.9mn.

· Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include MLCF, POWER, FCCL, PRL and UNITY, which formed 37% of total volumes.

· Stocks that contributed positively to the index include LUCK (+129pts), DAWH (+37pts), HUBC (+36pts), MTL (+29pts) and SYS (+27pts). Stocks that contributed negatively include UBL (-30pts), MCB (-11pts), POL (-5pts), NESTLE (-4pts) and HBL (-3pts). (AHL)