A bearish trend continued to prevail at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Wednesday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 164 points to close at 43,441.

The benchmark hit a day's high of 43,724 points, only 19 points above yesterday's closing. It hit a day's low of 43,416 points near the close of trading.

In all, 142.4 million shares worth Rs5.9 billion changed hands during the session. Of the 354 traded scrips, 102 advanced, 230 declined and 22 remained unchanged.

A Topline Securities report held concerns on declining forex reserves, prevailing political uncertainty, and lack of any trigger responsible for the second consecutive negative session.

"Newly-listed AGPL continued its upward trajectory while closing at the third upper cap in a row. Similarly, Matco foods surged by 4.6 per cent as the company signed an agreement with Chinese vendors for supply of new machinery to expand its capacity to 30,000k tons," the report read.

"After rallying in the last six sessions, the cement sector came under pressure and snatched 80 points from the index today as investors booked profits," it added.

Overall, the food and personal care products sectors dominated trading with 18.3m shares traded, while the banking and cement sectors followed with 13.5m and 13m shares changing hands.

Volumes were led by:

• Matco Foods Ltd: 12.8m shares traded [+4.57pc];

• PIA : 9.5m shares traded [+4.51pc];

• Unity Foods Ltd: 6.3m shares traded [-3.66pc];

• Azgard Nine: 5.6m shares traded [-5.61pc];

• Sui South Gas: 5.2m shares traded [+0.49pc].