The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) turned bullish on Thursday, a day before the budget presentation for the next financial year 2021-22, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining 473.87 points (+0.99 percent) to close at 48,251.49 points. The market opened on a positive note and remained in the green zone throughout the session. The KSE-100 Index touched an intraday high of 48,287.5 on the back of positive news flows on the upcoming federal budget, which is likely to provide major relief to the public and private sector to recover from pandemic hit economy. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index gained 260.14 points (+0.8 percent) to close at 32,657.4 points, while All Share Islamic Index gained 148.37 points (+0.63 percent) to close at 23,634.1 points. A total of 417 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 276 closed up, shares of 117 closed down while shares of 24 companies remained unchanged. The overall market volumes decreased by 315.81 million to 1,039.36 million shares. The number of total trades increased by 4,345 to 209,844, and value traded increased by Rs3.17 billion to Rs26.35 billion. The market capitalisation increased by Rs58.42 billion. Among scrips, WTL topped the volumes with 327.9 million shares, followed by KEL (48.8 million) and HUMNL (43.1 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include WTL, KEL, HUMNL, UNITY and PACE, which formed 48 percent of total volumes. The sectors propping up the index were technology & communication with 155 points, commercial banks with 116 points, fertilizer with 65 points, food & personal care products with 41 points and textile composite with 33 points. The most points added to the index were by TRG which contributed 128 points followed by UNITY with 36 points, HBL with 32 points, UBL with 25 points and SYS with 24 points. Sector wise, the index was let down by power generation & distribution with 16 points, oil & gas exploration companies with 14 points, automobile assembler with 5 points, engineering with 2 points and glass & ceramics with 1 point. The most points taken off the index were by HUBC which stripped the index of 13 points followed by PPL with 13 points, INDU with 9 points, INIL with 8 points and DAWH with 7 points. According to analysts, the market traded positively, adding a total of 510 points on the bourse and closed the session at a bullish note with 474 points. Banks, fertilizer, cement, technology stocks ruled the day. They said that Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin’s comments while disclosing the Pakistan Economic Survey also helped the market propel. They said that technology and the commercial banking sector added a major contribution to benchmark rally owing to possible tax cut for the communication sector in the upcoming finance bill and stellar growth in banks’ deposits and advances during May.