OUR STAFF REPORTER KARACHI - The Karachi stock market continued to witness a bullish trend Wednesday on the back of investors buying in the blue chip scrips of the oil and exploration companies. The KSEs 100-share index rose by 24.34 points or 0.20pc to 12,036.36 points, showing a modest turnover of 84.43m shares. The KSE market capitalisation amounted to Rs3, 195.54 billion or $37.71 billion while total trading value was recorded at Rs3.09b or $36.50 million respectively. The KSE-30 index surged 8.68 points or 0.07 per cent to close at 11,655.03 points mark. KSE future volume came at 2.70m shares, showing Rs284.65 million value with 0.30 per cent future spread. Uncertainty gripped the investor sentiment at KSE ahead of Pak-IMF officials meeting to discuss federal budget proposals and fiscal review for the release of IMF instalment of $3.3b for Pakistan under the loan instrument of Stand-by Arrangement Programme, said a market analyst. Positive run-up that took the index to triple digit gains during early trades indeed, led by OGDC, along with various dividend-yielding stocks, while low priced stocks added substantial turnover besides providing various trading opportunities to the investors, said another analyst. According to the analyst, snap rallies in banking and cement stocks, on the expectations of likely increase in PSDP allocation kept volatility and trading interest alive during the initial hours, before the strength invited renewed selling in expensive stocks, including OGDC, thus forcing the index to shed excess weight, while the remaining gains became victim of the day end squaring, thus forcing a squared ending. Rise in remittance, reduction in trade deficit and increasing exports, the improved numbers coincided with the IMF discussion, did allow the market men to make strong presentations in order to invite the sideliners, the effort, however, failed as the handful potential participants presumably understand the window dressing of economic numbers done mainly to present a strong case for release of the long awaited IMF tranhce, caution was therefore quite evident, the analyst opined.