KARACHI: Stocks continued to head north on Tuesday with the KSE-100 index up by 132.76 points or 0.49 per cent to the new all-time high at 27,309.02.

The investors were enthused by the unending rally as activity intensified with volumes up by 20 per cent in terms of shares traded.

The trading value crossed over the Rs14.9 billion mark after six months.

The figures released by the NCCPL in the evening showed foreigners as net buyers of $2.98m worth stocks, which was thought to be a good sign for market going forward.The stunning gain of rupee against the dollar, after it hit a nine month low, was a major sentiment booster.

Together with the improved foreign exchange reserves, shrinkage of trade deficit and ease in inflation, most were sure that the SBP at worst could retain interest rate at the current 10pc and at best resort to a cut, that could be a boon for the highly leveraged sectors such as cement.

The stocks on the cement sector thus dominated trading on Tuesday with the sector accounting for the highest volume of 107m shares.

DGK Cement and Fauji Cement rose by 1.57 and 1.18pc.

Samar Iqbal, senior Manager Equity Sales at Topline Securities, stated that with strengthening rupee, proposal of increasing Pak weight in MSCI FM 100 index and continuous local institutional support, benchmark index kept on rising to close at record high.

Auto assemblers, refineries and cement stocks remained in the limelight amid strengthening currency.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp observed that stocks sustained rally on strong valuations in oil and fertiliser and banking stocks.

Favourable trade deficit data; improved car sales data for July-Feb '14 and strong rupee-dollar parity were expected to attract remittances and foreign interest.