KARACHI - After a relentless charge in the last three trading sessions, bulls took a breather Thursday with the benchmark KSE 100-index ending almost flat at 52,869 points.

Volatile session was witnessed at the local bourse. Most of the selling pressure was witnessed during the second half of the day, after which the market closed at 52,869 levels, after losing 7 points, brokers said.

Investors flocked to MSCI small cap stocks as THALL, PAEL, ISL, & SNGP closed up 5%, 4.9%, 4.8%, & 3.4%, respectively, with cumulatively contribution of 107.4 points to the index. Amongst sectors, banks’ peeled 169 points off the index as investors pocketed profits. BAFL, NBP, UBL & MCB were down 3.5%, 3%, 2.4% & 2.2%, respectively, stated analyst at Topline brokerage.

Overall profit taking was observed in the banking sector where big banks such as MCB (down 2.22%), UBL (2.37%) and HBL (0.44%) lost value to close in the red zone. Steel sector gained to close higher than its previous day close as ISL (up 4.77%), INIL (4.71%) and MUGHAL (5%) closed in green, said analyst Arhum Ghous.

Slump in global crude prices after OPEC extended output cut decisions and concerns for falling FX reserves on external payments played a catalyst role in bearish close in the futures contracts rollover session at PSX, observed Ahsan Mehanti.

Volumes were down 33% to 408m shares d/d while traded value surged 3% to Rs24.4b/$233m.

Power Cement(R) was volume leader with 46.7m shares traded while Bank of Punjab with 25.5m shares traded and Engro Polymer with 22.96m shares traded were also in limelight in the session.