Following a Wall Street recovery the day earlier, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) also saw bullish activity on Wednesday, with the benchmark KSE-100 index gaining 211 points to close at 44,096.

The benchmark gained almost 390 points within the first few minutes of the trading session. It hit a day's high of 44,299.87 points soon after trading commenced, whereas the session's opening at 43,885 points remained the day's lowest point.

Volumes edged up, with 270 million shares worth Rs11.3 billion changing hands compared to 238 million shares worth Rs8.5bn traded yesterday. Of the 379 traded scrips, 169 advanced, 186 declined and 24 remained unchanged.

According to a report from Elixir Securities, investors tracked international markets that somewhat recovered after witnessing sharp losses.

Though the market kicked off on a positive note, however, the index couldn't sustain that level for long, the report read. It added that institutional buying was evident in select names with United Bank UBL PA +2.5pc leading gains in the financial, sector while the Oil and Gas Development Company OGDC PA +1.7pc being the star performer from the E&Ps sector.

Overall. engineering scrips dominated trading with 36.4m shares traded, while the communication and textile sectors followed with 36.0m and 26.2m shares changing hands.

Volumes were led by:

• TRG Pak Ltd: 26.8m shares traded [-0.05pc];

• Azgard Nine: 22.8m shares traded [+6.05pc];

• Aisha Steel Mill: 19.5m shares traded [-2.15pc];

• Sui South Gas: 16.1m shares traded [+2.92pc];

• Fauji Foods Ltd: 9.3m shares traded [+4.97pc].