The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) extended last week’s bullish momentum on Monday, with strong buying driven by growing expectations of an imminent interest rate cut.

The benchmark KSE-100 index surged to an intraday high of 2,783 points and closed at 187,761, marking a sharp gain of 2,662 points, or 1.44%.

Investor sentiment remained upbeat as market participants increasingly priced in a 50-basis-point reduction in the upcoming monetary policy decision, keeping buying interest broad-based throughout the session.

Additional support came from select stocks, including NML, AICL, IGIHL and LUCK, which drew investor interest after a Topline Securities’ report highlighted them as trading at attractive discounts to their sum-of-the-parts (SOTP) valuations.

On the index, ENGROH, UBL, HUBC, FFC, MEBL and SRVI emerged as the top contributors, jointly adding 1,554 points to the benchmark.

Despite the strong gains, trading activity remained relatively muted.

Total market volume stood at 1,195 million shares, while the value of shares traded reached Rs63.7 billion. BML topped the volume chart, with 246 million shares changing hands.