The news that the country will get a financial package from friendly countries led to another bullish session at the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Friday.

The benchmark index started the pre-Friday prayer session in the green, according to Arif Habib Ltd, but lacklustre activity caused the index to drop 96.39 points at the end of the session.

However, as trading started again, the benchmark recovered. Following Finance Minister Ishaq Dar’s announcement of a $13 billion package from China and Saudi Arabia, investors started looking for equities. While significant activity was seen in the oil and exploration sector, volumes overall remained stable.

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The KSE-100 index settled at 43,092.95 points, up 191.68 points or 0.45 per cent from the preceding session.

The trading volume decre­ased 20.8 per cent to 232.8m shares while the traded value went down 25.4 per cent to $34.4m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Cnergyico PK Ltd (21.1m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (17.9m shares), TPL Properties Ltd (15.1m shares), Pakistan Refinery Ltd (14.8m shares) and Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (12.5m shares).

Sectors that contributed to the index performance were exploration and production (129.3 points), technology and communication (98.4 points), oil marketing (22.8 points), tobacco (13.1 points) and food and personal care products (12.8 points).