KARACHI - The Karachi stock market once again crossed the psychological barrier on Wednesday ahead of SBPs Monetary Policy Statement release on strong valuations. The KSE 100-share index closed at 10022.25 points with a gain of 41.18 points. The KMI 30-index closed at 15746.21 points with a gain of 28.89 points and All Share index at 7000.42 points with a gain of 28.33 points. The trading activity was minimal as compared to the last trading session as the ready market volume stands at 4.607 million as compared to last trading session 8.673 million. Future market volume, however, stands at 1.192 million shares as compared to 2.483m shares last trading session. Market Capitalisation stands over Rs 2.773 trillion. About 172 companies advanced, 192 declined and 21 remained unchanged. The highest volumes were witnessed in Silk Bank limited at 4.833m closed at Rs 2.81 with a gain of Rs 0.10 followed by Sui Southern Gas at Rs 4.589m closed at Rs 29.63 with a gain of Rs 0.11, Lotte Pakistan at 3.31m closed at Rs 8.72 with a loss of Rs 0.03. Ahsan Mehanti, Director Arif Habib Investments Limited, said that rise in international oil prices close $77, expectation of good corporate result announcements this quarter and foreign interest in blue chip Oil & Gas & banking sector scripts played a catalyst role in positive activity at KSE despite concerns for economic & political uncertainty in the country. Hasnain Asghar Ali said that lack lustre and stagnation resurfaces, ahead of Financial and Economic storm Negativity was quite prominent on opening, despite high activity by offshore participants in previous sessions. He added that the locals, however, came in for off-loading and profit taking mainly in the high priced stocks. Die-hard support by OGDC however disallowed the low sentiments to get a reflection on the benchmark for long, low volume price jack-up however allowed the benchmark to regain positive numbers he informed. He pointed out that with the market men and stakeholders anxiously waiting for monetary policy announcement, the forward-looking participants however kept the sell on strength stance alive, mainly due to high tides in upcoming quarters mainly on economic and financial front. He informed that the up-hill task of imposing new tax reforms stay a point of concern as the implementation besides having social issues, will impact the local purchasing power and speed up the rising inflationary graph, adding to the nervousness is the statement by US representative making the release of further funds for economic uplift subject to imposition of taxes to the elite, the gloomy environment in upcoming quarters has therefore not only reduced the number of participants, trading horizon have also reduced substantially.