Colombo stock market wrapped the weekly operations on a negative note where both counters shed marginal returns. Bourse swung between gains and losses where main index crossed 7,228 mark in the opening hours. All share index marginally declined by 0.43 index points or 0.01% to end at 7,212.47 while 20-scrip S&P SL index shed 0.92 index points (-0.02%) to close at 4,058.62.

Price depreciations in counters such as Ceylon Beverage Holdings (closed at LKR 750.00, -12.7%), Cargills (Ceylon) (closed at LKR 135.60, -6.4%) and Dialog Axiata (closed at LKR 11.40, -0.9%) dragged the index performance to a red zone.

Daily market turnover was LKR 634mn. Commercial Bank topped the turnover list with LKR 95mn followed by Distilleries & Hatton National Bank with LKR 35mn & LKR 31mn respectively. No crossings were recorded during the session.

Out of 234 counters, 94 advanced, 85 slipped while 55 counters remained unchanged. Cash map slightly declined to 44% from 46%. 7 counters managed to reach 52wk high price levels.

Bansei Royal Resort was the most favored counter during the session. Textured Jersey Lanka, Access Engineering and Regnis were among heavily traded counters.

All three counters of Singer Group advanced considerably, subsequent to the announcement of proposed change in the structure of the Singer Group. Singer Sri Lanka counter reached 52wk high price of LKR 130.00 but closed below at LKR 128.00 (+4.1%) while Singer Industries advanced by 11.8% to close at LKR 189.90. Regnis counter reached a new 52wk high price of LKR 98.00 but closed at LKR 96.90 (+3.6%).

Meanwhile, Gestetner of Ceylon declined by 2.9% to LKR 136.00 following to the listing of right shares. Company raised LKR 45.6mn to invest in software and equipment in relation to the technological advancement.

Weswin Power (Pvt) Ltd has purchased approx. 32mn shares of Panasian Power at LKR 3.50 on 07th May 2015 and subsequent to the transaction, total shareholding of the company in Panasian Power increased to 10.1% of issued shares of the company. At today’s session, counter advanced to LKR 3.70 (+5.7%).

Further, Lee Hedges announced that the Lee Hedges Investments Ltd, subsidiary of Lee Hedges entered into an agreement with Tudawe Brothers Ltd on constructing the proposed mixed development project at Colombo 03 at a total cost of approx. LKR 978mn.

Softlogic Finance declared an interim dividend of LKR 1.50 per share and counter advanced to LKR 48.50 (+1.5%).

Foreign investors continued to be net sellers with a marginal net foreign outflow of LKR 0.1mn for the fifth consecutive session. Foreign participation was 23%. Net foreign outflows were seen in DFCC Bank (LKR 17mn), Union Bank (LKR 13mn) and Commercial Bank (LKR 10mn) while net foreign inflow was mainly seen in Amana Bank (LKR 17mn).

During the week the main index bagged 33.47 points or 0.47% while S&P SL 20 index slightly advanced by 5.17 points or 0.13%. Union Bank topped the weekly turnover list with LKR 459mn followed by Commercial Bank (LKR 443mn) & Textured Jersey Lanka (LKR 272mn).

Blue Diamonds (non-voting), Keells Food Products, Ceylon Cold Stores were among the top gainers of the week while Ceylon Beverage Holdings, Selinsing, Access Engineering were among the top losers of the week. Market PE remained unchanged at 13.8x during the week.

Foreign investors were net sellers for the week with a net outflow of LKR 676mn. Foreign participation was 30%. Net foreign outflows were seen in Union Bank (LKR 348mn), Dunamis Capital (LKR 189mn) and Commercial Bank (LKR 131mn) while net foreign inflows were seen in Distilleries (LKR 42mn), Textured Jersey Lanka (LKR 41mn) and Ceylon Cold Stores (LKR 17mn). Subsequent to the weekly outflows, year-to-date net foreign inflow decreased to LKR 3.1bn.

Meanwhile at the Treasury bill auction, T-Bill yields further dropped where 12M yield declined by 4bps to 6.35% while 3M yield declined by 3bps to 6.12% and 6M yield declined by 6bps to 6.26%. CBSL offered LKR 25bn worth of Treasury bills and the auction was oversubscribed by 3.1 times with bids received amounting to LKR 77.1bn. It was decided to accept LKR 32.3bn.

Lanka Securities Research