KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) has seen an increase of 3.08 percent on a week-on-week basis, a Karachi-based market research firm said on Friday.

The market this week crossed the 140,000-point barrier and closed the weekend session at 145,382.79 points on Friday, according to the PSX website.

The average daily traded volume and value during the week stood at 653 million shares and Rs47 billion ($165 million), respectively.

“This gain can be largely be attributed to buying by mutual funds on inflow of funds as equities performance continue to outshine other asset classes,” Karachi-based Topline Securities said in its weekly review.

Pakistan trade deficit for July clocked in at $2.8 billion, up by 44 percent year on year, according to the report. The country recorded remittance inflows of $3.2 billion last month, down 6 percent month on month and up 7 percent year on year.

Foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank decreased by $72 million on a weekly basis to reach $14.2 billion as of August 1, the central bank reported on Thursday.