Bourse dips further

Colombo bourse continued its dull sentiment yesterday slipping throughout the session amidst trading on thin volumes.

Thus, All-Share Price Index down by 52.9 points (-0.6%) to close at 8,508.9 for the day whilst S&P SL20 Index also dropped by 6.9 points (-0.3%) to close at 2,594.8. Sampath Bank, Expolanka Holdings, Ceylon Tobacco, Richard Pieris and Hemas Holdings remained as the top negative contributors to the ASPI during the day.

Further, the broader market’s total turnover stood at Rs. 1,190.2 mn against the 12-month average daily turnover of Rs. 3,905.5 mn, whilst the volume traded for the day was 50,188.3k against the 12-month average daily volume of 92,036.8k.-180,898.9k. Banks Capital Goods, Banks and Food and Beverage mostly contributed to yesterday’s turnover.

The top turnover generators for yesterday were Expolanka Holdings Rs.228.6 mn (-2.8%), Cargills Rs.205.7 mn (0.0%), Aitken Spence Rs.86.9 mn (+1.5%), Lanka IOC Rs.81.5 mn (+1.6%) and Browns Investments Rs.100.1 mn (+1.7%). Foreigners recorded a net inflow of Rs.105.5 mn yesterday.

Additionally, Industrial Asphalts, Kelsey Developments, Colombo Investment Trust, Lanka Ashok Layland and Ceylon Hotels Corp. were the top price gainers yesterday whilst Lake House Printers, Asia Asset Finance, Millennium Housing, Renuka Holdings and Laugfs Power were the top price losers. Further, Browns Investments, SMB Leasing (Voting), Tess Agro, Access Engineering and Expolanka Holdings were amongst the most actively traded stocks yesterday.