The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Wednesday landed in the red, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index losing 218 points, or 0.48 per cent, to close at 45,418.

The market touched the day's low at 45,297 points within the first 15 minutes of trading, but managed to rebound immediately. It tested the day's high at 45,808 points. The benchmark index sailed around the 45,700 level for most of the session, but adopted a downward trajectory in the second half.

More than 82 million shares of KSE-100 companies, worth around Rs6.8 billion, were traded during the day.

"Late session support remained in blue chip oil and banking stocks on the back of a surge in global oil prices and reports of surging banking deposits," Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said.

"Concerns over the outcome of the Supreme Court's review of the joint investigation team's report in the Panama Papers case played a catalyst's role in the bearish close," he added.

For the third day in a row, the engineering sector led the trading, with 22.2m shares traded. Chemicals and technology followed with 19.1m and 17.5m shares traded respectively.

"Wider market gave back some of the recent gains and most index names traded volatile and witnessed profit booking as politics continues to attract the most attention," read a note from Elixir Securities.

"As courts hear the case against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family, we see earnings related excitement and payouts to be over shadowed by political noise; however, there is a strong possibility that the Supreme Court may decide on the ongoing case in days ahead," the report stated.

Engro Corp (-2.5pc) dented the index the most after company concluded a meeting of the board with no corporate action, it added.

Stocks of 363 companies in all were traded on the exchange, of which 148 gained in value, whereas 200 declined and 15 remained unchanged.

Volumes were led by:

TRG Pak Ltd: 14.1m shares traded [+0.34pc];

K-Electric Ltd: 11.6m shares traded [-3.14pc];

Engro Polymer: 10.6m shares traded [+0.06pc];

Sui South Gas: 9.6m shares traded [+2.08pc];

Azgard Nine: 7.28m shares traded [+3.69pc].