KARACHI: The stock market upward mobility continued on Tuesday despite a brief hiatus in trading after sudden eruption of fire in the PSX building in early hours of the start of the week's trading on Monday.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange gained 456 points, taking the KSE-100 index to a record high of 81,023 points on Tuesday. The scaling of new peaks in the stock market is said to be buttressed by prospects of a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and easing of tight monetary policy by the State Bank. Moreover, the World Bank's support for privatisation of underperforming state-owned enterprises (SOEs), tax measured promised by the government in the budget 2024-25 and speculations surrounding robust corporate returns have contributed to bolstering the investors' sentiment.  Trading resumes after blaze in PSX building The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) resumed trading on Monday after a two-hour suspension due to a fire in the bourse's Karachi headquarters.  In a notice on its website, the exchange said trading was suspended at 10:25am and resumed at 12:25pm.  The situation was under control, it said, and brokerage firms' staff had started returning to the premises. The KSE-100, the PSX's main index, had in recent months risen to a historic high, surpassing 80,000 points on the back of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout last summer that averted a default and more recently, amid continuing reforms under the lender's umbrella.  It must be noted that the KSE-100 index settled at 80,566.21 points after gaining 353.41 points on Monday.