As the week came to a close on Friday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) continued its upward trend, with the KSE-100 index closing 0.50 percent higher. It started off down, but immediately turned positive and stayed there for the rest of the session, thanks to strong activity that helped boost the benchmark index to an intra-day high of 45,396.14, up 467.31 points. With a gain of 223.28 points, or 0.50 percent, the KSE-100 closed Friday’s session at 45,152.11. The KSE-100 finished the week up 3.7pc week-on-week (WoW) at 45,152. It had its best WoW performance since 30-Jul-20, with a WoW gain of 4.4pc. “Pakistan stocks rejoicing on a downward trend in oil prices, clarity on the political front and anticipation for a satisfactory finish in diplomatic discussions on Russia-Ukraine issue,” stated Al Habib Capital Markets Private Limited in a note. The Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based reading in March 2022 hit 12.7 percent on a year-on-year basis, compared to 12.2 percent in the previous month and 9.1 percent in March 2021, according to statistics issued on Friday by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). Meanwhile, the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) rose by 0.53 percent for the week ending March 31, 2022. Year over year, there has been a 16.79 percent rise in revenue. Finance, technology, and communications were three of the key sectors that pushed the KSE 100 index to its highest level since the financial crisis (29.90 points). On Thursday, the volume on the all-share index was 389.11 million, down from 415.63 million. From Rs9.68 billion to Rs11.11 billion, the value of shares traded increased. Following TPL Properties and Treet Corporation were Telecard Limited with 35.43 million shares and TPL Properties with 26.36 million shares. On Friday, 364 shares of 364 firms were traded, of which 183 rose, 149 fell, and 32 stayed the same.