Colombo stock market closed with negative returns on Tuesday amid the increase in treasury bill rates. Reflecting the weak investor sentiment, All Share index advanced to 7,035 mark but failed to maintain the optimistic momentum. Main share index shed 11.35 index points (-0.16%) to end at 7,020.80 while 20-scrip S&P SL index marginally declined by 3.93 index points or -0.10% to close at 3,908.03.

Price depreciation in Commercial Leasing and Finance (closed at LKR 4.20, -2.3%), Sri Lanka Telecom (closed at LKR 44.20, -1.8%) and CT Holdings (closed at LKR 130.00, -5.5%) dragged index performance to red zone.

Daily market turnover was LKR 652mn. Commercial Bank topped the turnover list with LKR 208mn underpinned by two crossings of 1.3mn shares at LKR 160.00 and stock accounted for 32% of the total turnover.

Access Engineering, CIC Holdings and Hatton National Bank were next best contributors to the turnover with LKR 42mn, LKR 27mn and LKR 26mn respectively. Single crossing was recorded in Hatton National Bank (0.1mn shares at LKR 217.80). Aggregate value of crossings represented 35% of the total turnover.

Out of 253 counters, 102 advanced, 87 slipped while 64 remained unchanged. Cash map declined to 55% from 67%. 11 counters touched 52wk low prices while only Kelani Cables reached 52wk high price of LKR 108.00 supported by the interim dividend announcement of LKR 3.00 per share. Counter closed lower at LKR 106.00 (-1.2%).

Meanwhile, index high cap counters such as Sri Lanka Telecom and Ceylon Tobacco touched fresh 52wk low prices of LKR 44.00 and LKR 896.50 respectively.
Textured Jersey counter witnessed heavy trading following the announcement of the decision to acquire Ocean Mauritius Ltd and the consequent share swap to partly fund the acquisition. Stock declined to LKR 27.90 initially but closed higher at LKR 28.00 (-2.1%).

Access Engineering, Laxapana Batteries and Lanka IOC were among heavily traded counters.

Further, ACL Plastics declared an interim dividend of LKR 4.00 per share and stock closed at LKR 127.00.

Foreign investors were net sellers with a net outflow of LKR 82mn. Foreign participation was 21%. Net foreign outflows were seen in Commercial Bank (LKR 139mn), FLC Hydro Power (LKR 10mn), CIC Holdings non-voting (LKR 8mn) while net foreign inflow was mainly seen in Ceylon Investment (LKR 25mn).

The market concluded the month of June with negative returns as ASI declined by 199.49 points or -2.8% while S&P SL 20 index declined by 92.63 points or -2.3%. Foreign investors were net sellers for the month with a net foreign outflow of LKR 2.7bn. Foreign participation was 28%.

Meanwhile at today’s Treasury bill auction, yields of 3M and 6M declined by 3bps each to 6.11% and 6.21% respectively. 12M yield remained unchanged 6.28%. CBSL offered LKR 20bn worth of Treasury bills today and the auction was oversubscribed by 2.4 times with bids received amounting to LKR 47.9bn. It was decided to accept LKR 19.1bn.

According to the data released by Department of census and statistics, the annual average inflation rate further dropped to 1.7% from 1.9% in June. The year-on-year change is 0.1%.

Market will be closed tomorrow (01st July 2015) due to Poya Holiday.

Lanka Securities Research