KARACHI-After gaining for five consecutive days, high volatility was observed at Pakistan Stock Exchange on Friday. The benchmark 100-share index closed down by 68.53 points (0.17%) at 39188.47 points.

Volatility prevailed in the market as the index, after hitting an intra-day high of 158 points and intra-day low of 110 points, finally closed at 39,188 points, dealers said.

Automobile sector continued to garner investor interest as Yen extended its loss to take the WoW decline to more than 5%. Top performer of the aforementioned sector was INDU (up 4.00%). Investor interest was seen in the fertilizer sector as investors anticipate strong fertilizer dispatch number for the month of July on the back of subsidy extended to farmers on Urea and DAP. EFERT (up 1.06%) and FFBL (rose1.20%) were top gainers of the aforementioned sector, stated analyst Nabeel Haroon JS Global.

Volumes increased by 21% to 199m shares while value increased by 17% to Rs 13.6b/130$m.

Continued interest was observed in auto sector as HCAR, INDU and PSMC gained by 0.4%, 4.6% and 0.3% respectively.  Investors took positions in engineering sector which resulted in ASTL to close at its upper limit while MUGHAL, ISL and CSAP closed up between 0.8% - 2.2%. Improved off take in fertilizer resulted in EFERT, FATIMA and FFBL to gain between 1% - 2%, said dealers at Topline brokerage.