KARACHI, May 10: Stocks posted massive gains for the third day in a row on Friday with the KSE-100 index up by 255 points to settle at new all-time high of 19,916 points.

The pre-election rally led by foreign funds was at the heart of the stock market gains. Foreign portfolio inflow on Friday amounted to $4.08 million. From January to-date, foreigners have bought $198m worth of Pakistani stocks.

The market sentiments remained positive all through the week as the benchmark surged 690 points over the earlier week’s close. Extensive buying across the board on Friday put the volume of shares traded at 218m and the trading value at Rs7.12 billionn. Market capitalisation saw an addition of Rs53bn to aggregate to Rs4.889 trillion.

“Pakistan stock market is now worth approximately $50 billion,” commented Mohammad Sohail, CEO at brokerage Topline Securities. A couple of heavyweights on the oil & gas exploration, fertiliser, cement and banking sectors made major gains which contributed to the index surge.