KARACHI - Smooth weekend allowed the local bourses to maintain escalating tempo as the benchmark KSE-100 Index managed a triple digit positive stance, gaining another 108 points on Monday. The market participants opted to wait for the policy announcement, with mixed expectations circulating in the arena and very few investors made attempt to trade. Quarterly results of the frontline banking stocks however refuelled the bulls, as the results were well above the expectations, thus allowing renewed buying in the sector stocks. General consensus of a likely decline in interest rates to the tune of 100 bps however allowed the sideliners to make fresh entries, although turnover stayed low. Since the manufacturing sector is directly affected by the discount rate factor, day end invited offloading in the sector. While low turnover and nervous movement invited an across the board offloading, forcing the bench-mark to close with clipped gains, stated market expert Hasnain Asghar Ali. KSE-100 Index opened in the green zone, gaining 32 points and kept the positive sentiment for the whole session. The benchmark 100 Index closed at 7,902.48 showing a surge of 107.53 points on Monday. Index observed days high level of 7,977.25 points. Shares-trading activity of the market remained 252.880m shares on Monday as compared to last sessions 259.364m shares on Friday. Total trading value of the market also decreased to Rs10.913 billion as compared to Rs13.316 billion of last session. Out of 352 active symbols at the Karachi stock market, as many as 200 gained value, 134 lost while the worth of the shares of 18 companies remained unchanged. Market capitalisation increased to Rs2.355 trillion against last trading sessions Rs2.323 trillion. KSE-100 Index managed a triple digit positive stance mainly due to activity in banking sector and supported by fertilizer and to some extent cement sector. Jahangir Siddiqui was the volume leader of the day with the trading of 21.595m shares on Monday. Among other well-traded at the KSE were NIB Bank with 17.845m shares, National Bank 12.170m shares, WorldCall Telecom 11.750m shares, Pak PTA 10.791m shares, Arif Habib Securities 9.880m shares, Bank Alfalah 9.857m shares, BOP 9.284m shares, Lucky Cement 8.716m shares, DGKC 7.599m shares, PTCL 7.525m shares, Pak Oil Fields 7.195m shares, OGDC 6.296m shares namely. Top-gainers include Unilever Pakistan, gaining Rs27.50/share with the trading of only 20 shares on Monday, Millat Tractors added Rs10.64/share and closed at Rs236.89, National Refinery gained Rs9.93/share and its value was improved to Rs208.67, MCB Bank added Rs9.37/share, closing at Rs206.25, Shell Pakistan closed at Rs251.91, adding Rs8.82/share, Packages Limited gained Rs8.27/share and closed at Rs173.73. On the other hand, Siemens Pakistan lost Rs24/share and closed at Rs726 with the trading of only 200 shares, Lakson Tobacco lost Rs10.57/share and its total value was decreased to Rs224, Mari Gas Company also lost Rs6.80/share and closed at Rs169.29, EFU Life closed at Rs140.71, losing Rs6.79/share, EFU General Insurance lost Rs6.22/share and closed at Rs126.06, Atlas Honda lost Rs3.91/share, closing at Rs74.34, Pak Reinsurance lost Rs3.32/share and closed at Rs63.13. The proposal by ICAP of withdrawing withholding tax from share trading supported the positive stance. Since the preparation of budget is underway and there are strong whispers of low collection by the revenue department, the revenue target for next budget and limited avenues of collection, new taxes and increase in prevailing tax slabs may, however, hit various sectors. Since the economy is likely to stay slow, collection of revenues from existing heads at prevailing rates might be a tough task. Identification of more avenues and increase in existing slabs can therefore hit the valuations at local bourses, where due to absence of leverage window the stocks are trading with clipped potential.