Bourse continued to rally for the fourth day while hitting a 5-month high, as investor confidence boosted over the assurance given by the EXIM Bank of China for the debt restructuring, coupled with the funding confirmation from ADB and WB after the IMF approval.
Accordingly, investor participation heavily centred on Banking, NBFIs and Insurance sectors while HNB, SAMP and NDB remained the top contributors to ASPI. Index opened high and gained sharply during the first few minutes into trading to break 9,500 and continued to edge up higher during the remainder of the session to close the day at 9,643 gaining 198 points. As the global freight index reached an almost 2 ½-year low, the selling spree escalated on EXPO which fell by 10.2% during the day. Meanwhile, turnover surged to 1-month high and recorded at LKR 3.4Bn was largely led by Capital Goods and Banking sectors with a contribution of 27% and 22% respectively. However, foreign investors turned net sellers after a week and recorded a net foreign outflow of LKR 181.3Mn.
EXPO and SAMP led overall turnover while EXPO contributed LKR 369.6 Mn (11%), and SAMP contributed LKR 291.9Mn (8%). Meanwhile, BIL dominated the market volume with 12.1Mn shares (11%) while ABL recorded the second largest volume of 6.4Mn shares (6%). Overall volume continued to improve compared to the previous session and recorded at 115 Mn. Top gainers for the day were CHL.R (+47%), CSF (+20%), TRAN (+20%), MULL (+18%) and RCH (+15%). Meanwhile, top losers for the day were CHL.R1 (-24%), ATLL (-16%), DIMO (-13%), HAPU (-11%) and EXPO (-10%).
Foreign investors turned net sellers amidst moderate participation and recorded a net foreign outflow of LKR 181.3Mn. Accordingly, RICH, TKYO.X and SUN were the top three shares to lead foreign inflow while HHL, JKH and CCS were the three counters recording the largest foreign outflow.
First Capital Research