The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Friday closed flattish, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index losing 58 points, or 0.13 per cent, after witnessing a mid-day bearish trend.

The market hit the day's high of 43,187 points in the second half of the session, after touching a day's low at 42,347 points in the first half before adopting an upward trajectory.

A total of 88m shares of KSE-100 companies changed hands during the session, with a total worth of nearly Rs9 billion.

"Stocks closed lower amid concerns for political uncertainty and weak financial results," said Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation.

He said that a surge in global crude prices amid falling United States inventories and reports that Nawaz Sharif and his sons would not appear for an accountability hearing invited mid-session support.

"Foreign outflows, concerns for economic uncertainty and dismal trade deficit data for July 2017 played a catalyst role in the bearish close at the PSX," he added.

Stocks of 362 companies were traded on the day of which only 145 advanced, while 196 declined and 21 remained unchanged.

The engineering sector dominated the day's trading with 24m shares traded, while the banking and the textile sectors followed with 24.7m and 21.7m shares traded respectively.

Volumes were led by:

Azgard Nine: 18.1m shares traded [+6.65pc]

Aisha Steel Mill: 14.2m shares traded [-0.33pc]

TRG Pak Ltd: 13.1m shares traded [+3.10pc]

B.O.Punjab: 7.8m shares traded [+0.29pc]

K-Electric Ltd: 7.5m shares traded [+0.92pc]