LAHORE - Investors rejoiced the government’s late night decision to approach IMF for addressing burgeoning external accounts where the market gained 3 percent during intra-day session, while managed to close with gain of 1.6 percent or 606 points at 38,505 points.

Early proceedings were dominated by bulls as early morning rupee devaluation of 7-8 percent in the opening 45 minutes of the market helped index to increase by 1,100 points and peaked at 39,027 points. Later, sectors like cements, and autos cooled off and dragged index by 31 and 19 points respectively.

Currency devaluation helped E&P stocks to close near to upper locks amidst their dollar-indexed revenues, where the said sector alone contributed 294 points to the index gain. Chemical sector gained investor’s attention by topping the volume leaders chart as margins of select stocks (LOTCHEM, SPL, EPCL and DOL) are expected to improve due to rupee devaluation.

Overall volumes at exchange witnessed rise of 21 percent compared to last day, while value touched 35 sessions high ($73.2m) and grew 56 percent as value stocks were largely traded. On top of that, out of 349 stocks, 173 gain in their value, while 152 stocks remained negative.

Experts said the KSE-100 index pulled through investors' nerve where the bourse took a retraction from its continuous losses by gaining 606 points. After weeks of procrastination, PTI’s government finally decided to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout package just to hold off default on international debt obligations and bring back confidence among the investors. Moreover, Pakistani rupee plunged about 8 percent in early hours of the trading session in an apparent devaluation by the State Bank of Pakistan. Moreover, oil & gas exploration companies, power and financial sector emerged as top gainers as their collective gains amounted to +490 points. OGDC (+5 percent) closed in the upper circuit where PPL (+4.49 percent) and POL (+4.82 percent) closed near the upper limit. HUBC (+3.35 percent), KAPCO (+1.15 percent), HBL (+0.73 percent), MCB (+0.5 percent) and UBL (+0.04 percent) closed in the green zone. Today's major heavyweights namely PPL (+4.49 percent), HBL (0.73 percent), OGDC (+5 percent), ENGRO (+3.46 percent), MCB (+0.5 percent), POL (+4.82 percent), UBL (+0.04 percent) and FFC (+3.15 percent) cumulatively contributed +390 points. Traded volumes slightly picked up by 21 percent DoD to 225m shares while value traded increased to $73m. Top volume stocks were LOTCHEM (+4.41 percent) and BOP (+3.26 percent). Moving forward, the KSE-100 performance shall remain under pressure along with selling pressure from foreign investors.