Stocks close week with marginal gains.

KARACHI -- Bulls continued to rampage on the stock market for the third week in a row and the benchmark KSE-100 index stormed past the 46,000-point level after 32 months.

Having climbed by as many as 2,238 points in the two preceding weeks, the bulls seemed to be exhausted and after volatile trade in two of the three trading sessions, the index closed with comparatively subdued gains of 277 points, or 0.61pc, at 45,931.

The ECC twice changed the dates for announcement of the textile policy during the outgoing week, which weakened investor sentiments on the textile sector. The government could not reach an agreement with the Independent Power ProduAcers over the circular debt issue, which also was the dampener for investors who had accumulated shares in the energy and particularly the power production sector.

The local market also followed the international equity markets which were volatile over the growing Covid-19 cases, uncertainty over the vaccine distribution and its efficacy and above all the extraordinary events in US where the House of ReprAeAsentatives twice impeached President Trump.

On the local political scene there was a thaw as opposition appeared to have withdrawn slightly from its aggressive protest rallies. Investors were buoyed by the improvement in macroeconomic indicators where the Large-Scale Manufacturing sector grew by a substantial 14.5pc year-on-year in NoveAmber and remittances jumAped 16.2pc for December 2020 at $2.4bn over the same month last year.

Average daily volume was up 9pc over the earlier week to 682m...