Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) turned bullish on Friday due to some positive news reports on the financial front, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining 588.02 points (+1.37 percent) to close at 43,486.46 points. The market opened on a positive note, switched between the green and red territories for the next 40 minutes due to rupee’s depreciation against the US dollar, and then remained positive throughout the session. The investors welcomed the news of upcoming funds from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), worth $2.5 billion for the fiscal year 2022-23, out of which $1.5-2 billion can be available in the ongoing calendar year. Moreover, release of remittances data for the month of April 2022 also gave confidence to investors. Remittances in a month crossed the $3 billion mark for the first time in history, reaching $3.1 billion in April 2022 and extending support to foreign exchange reserves and rupee against the US dollar. According to statistics released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday, remittances grew by 7.6 percent during the first 10 months (July-April) of the current fiscal year 2021-22 to reach $ 26.1 billion as compared to $24.22 billion during the same period of the last financial year 2020-21. The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 651.95 points, showing an intraday high of 43,505.75 and a low of 42,853.80 points. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index gained 386.68 points (+1.32 percent) to close at 29,573.73 points, while KMI All Share Islamic Index gained 312.58 points (+1.49 percent) to close at 21,356.7 points. A total of 355 companies traded shares in the stock exchange compared to 352 a session earlier. Out of traded companies, shares of 241 closed up, shares of 94 closed down while shares of 20 companies remained unchanged. Out of 95 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 79 closed up, 13 closed down and three remained unchanged. The overall market volumes decreased by 76.39 million to 208.11 million shares. Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index decreased by 1.67 million to 100.46 million shares. The number of total trades decreased by 23,343 to 95,955, while the value traded decreased by Rs0.83 billion to Rs6.97 billion. Overall market capitalisation increased by Rs93.59 billion. Among scrips, TREET topped the volumes with 20.90 million shares, followed by CNERGY (20.89 million) and PRL (14.95 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included TREET, CNERGY, PRL, LOTCHEM and WTL, which formed over 35 percent of total volumes. In terms of rupee, NESTLE remained the top gainer and witnessed an increase of Rs173.16 (+3.08 percent) per share, closing at Rs5,789. The runner-up remained SFL, the share price of which climbed up by Rs61.99 (+7.29 percent) to Rs912. ISIL remained the top loser in terms of rupee and witnessed a decrease of Rs31.7 (-6.93 percent) per share, closing at Rs426.05, followed by SIEM, the share price of which fell by Rs18 (-2.91 percent) to close at Rs600 per share. The sectors taking the index towards the north were commercial banks (136 points), oil & gas exploration companies (127 points), cement (49 points), automobile assembler (47 points), and investment banks/ investment companies/ securities companies (37 points). The most points added to the index were by OGDC (51 points), PPL (38 points), MTL (37 points), and POL and BAHL (36 points each). No heavy weight sector remained in the red territory. The most points taken off the index were by TRG (18 points), IGIHL (5 points), BAFL and NATF (3 points each) and AVN (2 points).