KARACHI: The KSE-100 index closed higher by 97.15 points (0.27 per cent) on Tuesday, though the stocks struggled to move much in either direction as investors have become uncertain about whether the market can continue its record run or it will finally succumb to a long-overdue pullback as the index for the third time makes an effort to breach the 36,000 level.

As strong volatility was observed in the marl(et, the index moved between the day`s maximum gains and losses of 135 and 171 points.

Volumes improved to 311 million shares of trading value of Rs13.5 billion, from 200m shares traded worth Rs9.6bn on Monday. The first four volume leaders continued to be low-pricedspeculative stocks, including Silkbank (R); Pace (Pak) Ltd, TRG Pak Ltd andK-Electric.

Foreign investors were buyers of net $5.04m worthshares, with major inflow of $4.3m in fertiliser sector and $2.9m in banks whileoutflow of $3.8m was seen from the cement sector.

Individuals were the majorsellers of equity valued at $4.09m.

`Renewed interest in cement sector helped the market to post some gains with rising volumes,` said dealers at brokerage Topline Securities.

Expectations of better end-June 2015 earnings helped cement scrips to rally.

Maple Leaf Cement gained 4.8pc, Pioneer Cement 4.7pc, Cherat Cement 3.6pc, DG Khan Cement 2.5pc and Lucky Cement was up by 1.4pc.

Continued institutional interest in Engro Corp and Engro Fertilisers helped these stocks to rally 1.5pc and 1.8pc.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp stated that the sentiments remained bullish at the KSE after CPI inflation for July plunged to a 12-year low at 1.8pc.