The Pakistan Stock Exchange closed its week on a positive note, with the benchmark KSE-100 shares index climbing 554 points or 1.27 per cent to reach 44,337 points.

Volumes dropped further, with only 58.17 million shares, worth nearly Rs4.85billion, changing hands by the end of the session.

Initially, the benchmark showed mixed activity while sailing around the day's opening level at 43,783 points. However, during the second half of the trading session, it adopted a vertical trajectory on the back of speculation.

The benchmark recorded the day's low at 43,696 points — down 87 points from the session's opening. It marked the day's high at 44,466 points.

Overall volumes were led by the commercial banking sector, with almost 20 million shares traded. The cement and power sectors followed the pursuit with 16.0mn and 11.6mn shares traded respectively.

"Surging global crude prices, renewed foreign inflows and Prime Minister rejection of resignation call challenging JIT report played a catalyst role in record close," said senior analyst Ahsan Mehnati.

Stocks of 334 companies were traded, of which 231 gained in value, 86 declined and 17 remained unchanged.

Volumes were led by:

Silk Bank Ltd: 8.31m shares traded [+0.68pc].

Power Cement: 8.21m shares traded [+1.50pc];

K-Electric Ltd: 8.16m shares traded [-2.95pc];

Sui South Gas: 6.18m shares traded [-2.23pc]; and,

TRG Pak Ltd: 5.63m shares traded [+1.35pc].