Bulls stayed firmly in control at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday, driving the benchmark KSE-100 Index higher by more than 2,000 points as aggressive buying in banking, energy and cement stocks kept the market’s upward momentum intact.

The market opened in positive territory and extended its gains throughout the session, supported by strong buying in commercial banks, cement, automobile assemblers, fertiliser, oil and gas exploration companies, oil marketing companies (OMCs) and refinery stocks.

The benchmark KSE-100 index settled at 187,454.69 with handsome gains of 2,082.49 points, or 1.12%, from the previous close of 185,372.20.

Read: PSX climbs 3.23% on easing oil, ME de-escalation

During the session, the index touched an intraday high of 187,546.36 after slipping to a low of 185,910.39, reflecting sustained buying interest across the market.

Analysts attributed the rally to continued investor optimism over Pakistan’s improving macroeconomic outlook, easing monetary conditions and persistent institutional buying in index-heavy sectors, which helped extend the market’s upward momentum at the start of the trading week.

Overall, trading volume increased to 888.4 million shares from Friday’s close of  815.6million. The value of traded shares stood at Rs49.98billion. Shares of 495 companies were traded. Of these, 296 shares closed higher, 182 fell and 17 remained unchanged. TPL Properties topped the volume chart with trading in 66.8million shares, rising Rs0.09 to close at Rs12.54.