Equities at Pakistan's Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) commenced fresh week on a bullish note on Monday as investors took interest in the top banking companies after the country's state bank increased key interest rate by 50 basis points at the weekend.

The benchmark KSE 100-Index gained 0.32 percent or 74.64 points to close at 23,242.68 points on Monday as against 23,168.04 points recorded on Friday as selling in cement companies couldn't derail the bullish rally in the banking sector.

The KSE All Share Index increased by 0.56 percent or 93.68 points to end at 16,694.18 points, the KSE 30-Index swelled by 0. 37 percent or 66.55 points to conclude at 17,956.93 points, while on the other hand the KMI 30-Index, which is constituted of the top Islamic funds and companies, declined by 1.05 percent or 418. 94 points to finish the opening session at 39,545.97 points.

The Karachi Stock Exchange started the first trading session of the week on a bearish note where during initial trade the key index hit the lowest ebb of 23,083.24.

However, trends reversed and the main index extracted numbers from banking sector bullish rally which helped it to hit the intraday highest level of 23,323.72 before some profit-taking in cement companies cut down some of the intraday gains but the key index managed to close above 23,200 levels.

Majority of the oil, cement and textile stocks fell due to 50 bps increase in SBP policy rate but strong rally in banking stocks resulted in index posting a decent return.

Investors sold shares in leverage stocks like cements and textiles while they took fresh position in the banking stocks in the hope that rising interest rate will increase their profitability which caused banking stocks like United Bank, National Bank and Habib Bank to close at their 5 percent upper circuit breakers.

The market volumes increased by 51.176 million shares to 242. 848 million shares, the market capitalization improved by 27.496 billion rupees (274.962 million U.S. dollars) to 5.510 trillion rupees, while the KSE trading value surged by 2.318 billion rupees to 8.476 billion rupees on Monday.

In broader market, a total of 332 companies changed hands during the course of trading on Monday where prices of 166 issues declined, 145 advanced, whereas values of 21 other scrips stayed unchanged at previous week's levels.

Bank of Punjab was the top traded company of the day with volumes of 42.203 million shares, followed by Maple Leaf Cement and Fauji Cement SPOT with turnovers of 20.954 million shares and 19.4 million shares, respectively.

Siemens Pakistan was the top price gainer with increment of 45. 32 rupees per share to close at 956.76 rupees while on the flip side Sanofi-Aventis led the top decliners with decrement of 27.20 rupees a share to end at 516.80 rupees. Endi