LAHORE - The equity market managed to retain an upward trend on the first trading day of the week with bulls remaining unchallenged due to massive buying in banking, communication and energy stocks as hectic buying helped market gain 2.68 per cent after a dismal last week. The benchmark KSE-100 index gained 150.83 points to close at 5,773.76 points as compared to 5,625.90 points on last business day (Friday). Volume remained at 180.31 million shares; showing a sharp improvement against volumes of 162.43 million shares registered on Friday. According to records, this volume level is below the average of 250 million shares traded on a daily basis last year. A senior trader at a brokerage was of the view that hectic buying soared prices of leading scrips. Another senior analyst opined that the market sentiment was bullish since the start of trading on hectic buying and despite profit taking. Index closed in the positive zone. Rally in the banking and oil and gas sectors derived the bourse upward, he added. The market capitalisation improved by Rs 42.757 billion to Rs 1.808 trillion. The KSE-30 gained 212.31 points to close at 5,894.10 points while KMI-30 also secured 226.57 points and wrapped up at 7,738.68 points. Earlier, the market opened with positive note and this trend remained intact throughout the both sessions of the day and bourse ultimately ended with heavy gain. At KSE, 177 scrips recorded gain, 93 remained decline and 15 kept unchanged out of 285 scrips traded on the day. On Monday, volume leader scrip in KSE was PTCLA which was traded up to 16,388,700 shares. At KSE, PTCLA, Oil and Gas Dev Co and Bank Al-Falah gained their values of Re 0.21, Rs 2.51 and Re 0.70 closed at Rs 15.97, Rs 53.89 and Rs 13.85 respectively. Fauji Fert Bin Qasim, Jah. Sidd Co and Faysal Bank also secured further values of Re 0.69, Rs 1.59 and Re 0.58 closed at Rs 17.70, Rs 33.78 and Rs 13.98 respectively. Pakistan Oilfields Ltd, Lucky Cement, Fauji Fertilizer and PSO also obtained values of Rs 5.65, Rs 1.52, Rs 4.51 and Rs 6.20 closed at Rs 118.73, Rs 32.04, Rs 94.86 and Rs 130.49 respectively. While, NIB Bank shed its value of Re 0.12 closed at Rs 5.31 followed by Pak Petroleum Ltd, Bosicor Pakistan and Azgard Nine which also dipped down to Rs 1.56, Re 0.17 and Re 0.36 closed at Rs 155.46, Rs 6.77 and Rs 18.19 respectively. D.S Ind Ltd also shed its value of Re 0.09 closed at Rs 3.49. While Lahore Stocks Exchange also gained 63.8 points as LSE-25 closed at 1,695.34 points as compared to 1,631.54 points on last Friday wherein 20,878,700 shares were traded as compared to 20,929,000 shares on Friday while 50 scrips remained equal, 13 shed values and 49 moved up.