KARACHI - Karachi stocks closed higher amid thin trade on speculations ahead of major quarter-end earning announcements due this week. The Karachi stock market benchmark KSE-100 share index marginally up by 13.56 points or 0.06 percent to end the day at 22360.85 points compared to 22347.29 points of the previous day.
Ahsan Mehati analyst at KSE said institutional profit-taking witnessed in stocks across the board on economic uncertainty after rising current account deficit data for Jul-Sep’13, limited foreign interest and falling global stocks.
Record quarter earnings and payout of MCB Bank and hopes for key announcements on privatisation of SOEs played a catalyst role in positive sentiments in selected blue chip stocks.
KSE-Allshare index up by 39.14 points or 0.24 percent to close the day at 16217.56 points, KSE-30 share index grew by 21.70 points or 0.13 percent to finish the day at 16968.48 points while KMI-30 share index decreased by 114.05 points or 0.30 percent to conclude the session at 38029.56 points.  Trading took place in 319 companies where losers outnumbered the gainers 183 to 121 while the value of 15 stocks remained intact. Wyeth Pak was the biggest price gainer of the day up by Rs 215.25 to Rs 4520.25 followed by Bata (Pak) increased by Rs 89.25 to Rs 1874.25. Nestle Pak and Colgate Palmolive were the top losers of the day down by Rs 100 to Rs 6300 and Rs 69.05 to Rs 1311.95. 
Equity dealer at Topline, Samar Iqbal said in spite of huge foreign inflows market took a breather after rising by 3.5pc in last few trading sessions as investors opted to book some profits. PSO saw selling pressure amid news of increased circular debt. Amid better September result expectations OGDC remained in limelight and MCB EPS of 16.98 with cash dividend 35pc was above expectations.
The day turnover of stock market in term of shares was 92.376 million after opening at 148.653 million shares and the value of traded reduced to Rs 4.596 billion from Rs 6.442 billion. Capitalisation of the market maintained at Rs 5.300 trillion as compared to Rs 5.287 trillion of a day earlier.
Active list was gain topped by PTCLA with 7.168 million shares as it closed at Rs 26.85 after opening at Rs 26.98.  Fauji CementXD was on the second position with 7.134 million shares off by Re 0.23 to Rs 12.12.
 I was followed by Bank Al-Falah with 6.917 million shares up by Re 0.59 to Rs 23, National Bank with 4.288 million shares extended by Re 0.44 to Rs 52.33 and Bank of Punjab with 4.243 million shares shed by Re 0.12 to Rs 10.39.