"Investors adopted a cautious approach this week with the local bourse hovering around an all-time high level and the year-end reporting period just around the corner," said Furqan Ayub, analyst at the JS Global.
However, he said, investors'' interest shifted towards high-yielding stocks such as HUBC, FFC and POL while trading activity remained tilted towards second and third tier stocks.
The market capitalisation went up by Rs24.31 billion, touching Rs4,256.83 billion mark against Rs4,232.52 billion a week ago. However, trading activity remained thin and average daily trading volume declined by 0.3 percent. Average daily trading volume stood at 137.89 million shares against 138.33 million last week.
Average daily value also fell by 11.8 percent to Rs3.08 billion, down from Rs3.5 billion a week ago.
During the past week, foreign investors'' interest in the Karachi stock market also withered and foreigners were net sellers, off-loading shares worth $5.6 million.
Bulls ruled the Karachi share market for three days out of a four-day week. The market closed on a negative note on just one day in the past week.
On Monday, Karachi share market opened in the green zone and also closed on a positive note. On the first trading day, KSE-100 index gained 26.60 points, closing at 16,892 points, up from 16,865.34 points.
On Wednesday, share market witnessed a bullish trend and the benchmark KSE-100 index inched up by 35.40 points, closing at 16,927.34 points, up from 16,892 points a day ago.
The Karachi Stock Exchange ended lower on Thursday as investors preferred profit-taking and KSE-100 index lost 35.02 points, closing at 16,892.32 points, down from 16,927.34 points.
On Friday, Karachi share market opened in the green zone and maintained positive trend till the session''s end. KSE-100 index gained 50.87 points to close at a peak level of 16,943.19 points, up from 16,892.32 points.
Analysts said that due to year end, they expected investors to continue to remain cautious during the next week. However, the first week of the new-year was likely to be trigger fresh activity in the market. "We are expecting new investment in the market in January 2013. At present, investors are taking new positions," they said.
They said that during the past week, there were some good news on the macro front, forex reserves rose up by $169 million to $13.4 billion, while more increase was expected in the next week after the country received $688 million under CSF on Friday.
On the banking side, T-bill auction saw SBP rejecting all bids. Other key highlight of the week was the release of fertiliser off-take numbers for November, they said.