KARACHI: Stocks started on a firm note on Monday, the first trading day of Feb, with a gain of 161.77 points.

The KSE-100 index closed at 26,946.11 points, or within touching distance of the 27,000-level though in the intra-day trade it tested that level.

Mainly on the back of foreign buying of net $32 million worth stocks in January, the Pakistan equity market had defied the general slump in the regional market; the KSE gained 6 per cent in Jan.

Several factors boosted investor sentiments on Monday. Those included foreign buying of Pakistani stock worth $3m; huge purchases by mutual funds and non-bank financial institutions and the four-month CPI (inflation) figure which came in at 7.91 per cent against the consensus expectations of 7.95 per cent.

The breakthrough mood in the talks with the TTP and robust financial results released by Engro Polymer and PTCL among some others also lifted investor sentiments.

Analyst Asad I. Siddiqui at Topline Securities stated that the market rallied, buoyed by 4-month CPI (inflation) figure, with high participation as volumes reached Rs11.2bn.

Better than expected result from PTC coupled with impressive dividend kept investors’ interest high in the scrip, interest was seen in Engro, PSO, POL and NML amongst others. Moreover, on the news that the government was working on a drug pricing mechanism, majority of the pharma stocks rallied on Monday. However, selective profit-taking was seen in cement sector scrips.

Ovais Ahsan at JS Global said that the market opened the week on a bullish note driven by the oil and gas exploration sector.

Bucking the regional trend the market gained on continued foreign portfolio investor interest in the blue chips. OGDC was up by 0.6pc, POL higher by 1.9pc and PPL up by 1pc were major gainers of the day in terms of contribution to the index.