The Pakistan Stock Exchange on Thursday experienced a bullish session, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining 609 points to close at 43,528.

The benchmark showed some negative activity during the first few minutes of trading before adopting a positive momentum for the rest of the session. It hit a day's low of 42,384 points a few minutes after trading commenced, whereas it hit a day's high of 43,628 points near the end of the session.

Volumes edged up as 190 million shares worth Rs9 billion changed hands as compared to 188m shares worth Rs8.5b during the last session. Of the 346 traded scrips, 208 advanced, 123 declined and 15 remained unchanged.

A market review report from Topline Securities held political developments responsible for the movement of the index. The market "opened in a negative zone on the back of overnight news of the Supreme Court's decision against former premier Nawaz Sharif", the report read.

However, it said that later political developments indicating that Senate elections are going to be held on time helped improve sentiments at the bourse. "This led market to stage a strong bounce back," it added.

Overall, the engineering sector dominated trading with 27.0m shares traded, while the cement and chemicals sectors followed with 26.6m and 18.4m shares changing hands.

Volumes were led by:

• Dost Steels Ltd: 19.36m shares traded [+3.78pc];

• Azgard Nine: 16.2m shares traded [-3.09pc];

• Lotte Chemical: 10.2m shares traded [+1.93pc];

• Fauji Foods Ltd: 7.3m shares traded [-2.84pc];

• Matco Foods Ltd: 6.8m shares traded [+1.08pc].