The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday closed almost flat as the benchmark KSE-100 index edged up 7.49 points to close at 40,468 points.

The index adopted an upward trajectory soon after the commencement of the trading and touched the day's high at 40,819 points within the first few minutes. Subsequently, the benchmark index started to retreat and touched a day's low at 40,036 points in the second half of the day.

In all, almost 150 million shares worth Rs8.2 billion were traded. Of the total, KSE 100 stocks accounted for 83m shares traded.

The communication sector led activity with 21.8m shares traded, followed by the cement and engineering sectors with 19.1m and 12.9m shares traded, respectively.

"Stocks closed higher amid speculation in selected scrips across the board on foreign inflows after strong corporate results and PSX stocks' inclusion in MSCI emerging markets and FTSE Global Equity Index Series for Asia Pacific this year," said Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation.

He added that concerns remained over a surging trade deficit and falling foreign exchange reserves. Strong data on cement sales, oil sales and fertilizer sales for August 2017 played a catalyst role in the higher close.

A total of 383 scrips were traded in the session, of which only 154 advanced, 210 declined and 19 remained unchanged.

Volumes were led by:

TRG Pak Ltd: 12m shares traded [+0.97pc];

Chakwal Spinning: 7.5m shares traded [-8.39c];

B.O.Punjab: 7.4m shares traded [+0.44pc];

WorldCall Telecom: 7.1m shares traded [-2.91pc];

Sui South Gas: 6.4m shares traded [-3.80pc].