Bears continued a slow rout at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday, with the benchmark KSE-100 index losing 359 points, or 0.79pc, to close at 45,060.

The market touched the day's high at 46,087 points within the first 30 minutes of trading, but continued shedding points for the rest of the day to reach the day's low at 44,972 points.

"Stocks closed lower amid concerns over [...] $12.1 billion current account deficit for fiscal 2017 and cautious activity ahead of the Supreme Court hearing tomorrow over the joint investigation team probe," Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said.

"The market opened gap up in the morning and the KSE-100 Index edged up by as much as 1.3pc within the first 15 minutes of trading as participants cheered overnight news that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family had acquired and submitted 'convincing' proof to the Supreme Court to support their claim of no illegal action in financial dealings," a note by Elixir Securities read.

"The index, however, couldn't sustain gains and declined to not only fill the gap but extended losses further on profit-taking and general lack of buying interest, especially by local institutional investors."

More than 67 million shares of KSE-100 companies, worth over Rs6.4bn, were traded during the day.

The engineering sector dominated the session with 19.2m shares traded. Commercial banks and technology followed with 17.3m and 16.6m shares traded.

Stocks of 374 companies in all were traded on the exchange, of which 103 gained in value, whereas 252 declined and 19 remained unchanged.

Volumes were led by:

TRG Pak Ltd: 10.5m shares traded [-2.77pc];

Aisha Steel Mill: 8.04m shares traded [-4.02pc];

Dewan Motors: 7.20m shares traded [-4.99pc];

Engro Polymer: 7.13m shares traded [-2.86pc];

Azgard Nine: 6.22m shares traded [-3.98pc].