Cooling political temperature, hopes of better financial results and State Bank of Pakistan’s approval of AKBL transaction helped the stock market gain 96 points on Wednesday.

Market volumes remained low at 3 billion rupees. Major volume was seen in MLCF, AKBL and JSCL, stock dealer Muhammad Rizwan observed.At local equity market, the bench mark KSE 100-share index gained 96.46 points or 0.58 percent to stop the day at 16742.22 points as compared to 16645.76 points of the previous session.

KSE allshare-index added 58.40 points or 0.50 per cent to end the day at 11828.07 points, KSE 30-share index increased by 94.89 points or 0.70 per cent to finish the day at 13696.41 points while KMI 30-share index went up by 190.93 points or 0.66 per cent to close the day at 28906.15 points.Equity expert said stocks closed higher as hopes rose over positive talks with IMF on macro economic assessment.

Govt assurance for timely elections in the country, expansion plans by PPL, Nishat group and hopes for easing political uncertainty affected the sentiments. Rising cement sales data, expectations for stronger earning announcements in oil, cement and textile stocks and higher global commodities played a catalyst role in bullish sentiments at KSE.

The day turnover of stock market in term of shares was 90.990 million shares compared to 86.787 million shares of Tuesday. Trading value rose to Rs 3.079 billion from Rs 2.688 billion while the market capitalization stood at Rs 4.192 trillion higher than Tuesday’s Rs 4.171 trillion.

Trading took place in 319 companies where gainers outnumbered the losers by 165 to 128 while the values of 26 companies remained intact. UniLever Pak witnessed highest gain, up by Rs 80.77 to Rs 10080.77, followed by Attock Petroleum Limited, increased by Rs 5.80 to Rs 511.55. Pakistan International Container and the Abbot Lab were the top losers of the day, down by Rs 9.91 to Rs 205.28 and Rs 9.35 to Rs 203.67 respectively.

Active list was again topped by Maple Leaf Cement with 14.516 million shares as it closed at Rs 15.76 after opening at Rs 15.50. Askari Bank was on the second position with 12.429 million shares. It was followed by Jahangir Siddiqi Company with 4.969 million shares, shed Re 0.06 to Rs 15.05, Byco Petroleum with 3.963 million shares, off by Re 0.38 to Rs 13.33 and TRG Pakistan Limited with 3.852 million shares, marginally up by Re 0.03 to Rs 5.45.