KARACHI - The local stock market extended its rally on Thursday as investors accumulated shares in the banking and fertiliser sectors ahead of the launch of Margin Trading System (MTS) for the equity investors. UKs commitment for doubling Pakistans financial assistance to uplift its social sector also gave support to the market. The KSE 100-share index surged by 62.84 points to close at 11,762 points. The index had ended at 11,699.16 on Wednesday. Total volumes improved to 162.44 million from 143.29 million shares treaded previously. Market capitalization stood at Rs3, 174.18 billion or $37.06 billion while trading value came at Rs5.55 billion or $64.74 million, the KSE reported. The KSE 30-index closed at 11,462.56. Future volume was recorded at 5.76 million shares and its value was recorded at Rs597.52 million with a spread of 2.65 per cent. Lotte Pakistan PTA, National Bank of Pakistan, Hubco Power Company Limited and Nishat Mills Limited and Arif Habib CorpSD were the top five volume leaders at KSE. Their stocks traded at a higher price, supporting these companies to depict decent earnings. The market has entered into a consolidation phase and soon after the stocks will start rising, a market analyst said. Bullish activity witnessed in the earning announcement session led by fertilizer and banking sector scrips on higher banking spreads and strong valuations, he said. "While the high priced stocks continue to stay under pressure, mainly due to cued-up sellers on strength from both local and off-shore channels and exit seeking aliens, the local participants cautiously accumulated dividend yielding stocks along with various mid-tier stocks, trading way below the fair values," said another analyst. He further said snap rallies in various stocks mainly in NBP and Lotte PTA provided short-term trading activity to the market men, thereby keeping the turnover ticking under pressure high priced, although, carrying potential of trading up to the levels of 10 multiples provided, leverage product got the expected response both from financiers and users. The gloomy economic, financial, diplomatic and issues of uprising in Arab states have kept the wider market participants in a cautious mode. The resident participants are likely to take advantage of discounts in offing as the scenario has kept the high priced stocks exposed to the threat of sell-off by the financial groups operating from both local and off-shore accounts and foreign fund managers. In case the situation persists, dividend yielding stocks managing to stay firm on the growth path despite all odds along with those having low impact cost, will, however, continue to invite equity specific funds from the local circuits, according to analyst.