KARACHI: The stock market on Wednesday continued its winning streak for the seventh straight session on higher remittances, briefly crossing 86,000 intraday on easing political tensions and speculations of robust corporate earnings.

However, despite aggressive foreign selling, the index scaled an all-time high with meagre gains.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks hit a new high aided by banking scrips after the State Bank of Pakistan revised perparty exposure limits for small and medium enterprises and 29pc year-onyear increase to $2.8bn in September.

He said the market witnessed a midsession selling on falling global crude oil prices and foreign outflows.

Topline Securities Ltd said the KSE-100 indexexperienced significant volatility, peaking at 86,451 and dipping to 85,444, mainly due to profit-taking and the index`s inability to sustain gains above 86,000. However, institutional buying supported the index forpositive closing.

As a result, the benchmark index posted a moderate gain of 5.3 points to close at 85,669.28.

Key contributors to the index included MCB Bank, Lucky Core Industries, Bank Al-Habib, HubPower, and Habib Bank, which collectively added 292 points.

Conversely, Fauji Fertiliser, Engro Fertiliser, and Pakistan Oilfield shaved off 215 points.

The trading volume was up 17.66 per cent to 596.05million shares. However, the traded value fell 5.17pc to Rs31.34bn dayon-day.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volumeincludedK-Electric (55.79m shares), Hub Power Company (39.66mshares), Pakistan Telecom (32.22m shares), Bank of Punjab (27.40m shares) and WorldCall Telecom (26.62m shares).

The shares registering the most significant increases in their prices in absolute terms were Lucky CoreIndustries(Rs114.32), Hallmark Company (Rs102.50), Pakistan Engineering Company Ltd (Rs76.52), Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (Rs42.89) and Khyber Textile (Rs34.63).

The companies that suffered major losses in theirshare pricesin absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan (Rs75.24), Hoechst Pakistan (Rs54.13), Sapphire Fibres (Rs24.11), Leiner Pak Gelatine (Rs21.56) and Pakistan Oilfields (Rs15.62).

The foreign investors remained net sellers as they ofnoaded shares worth $11.23m.

However, mutual funds maintained their buying spree, picking shares worth $3.50m.