Colombo equities marginally advanced on Thursday amid notable foreign inflow. Core index managed to increase by 5.23 index points or 0.07% to end at 7,530.33 while 20-scrip S&P SL index bagged 2.12 index points (+0.05%) to close at 4,190.23. Price inclines in counters such as Nestle Lanka (closed at LKR 2,235.00, +4.8%), John Keells Holdings (closed at LKR 254.50, +0.6%) and Commercial Bank (closed at LKR 177.00, +0.5%) contributed positively to the index performance.

Daily market turnover was LKR 1.7bn. Piramal Glass topped the turnover list with LKR 133mn followed by People’s Leasing & Finance (LKR 121mn) & John Keells Holdings (LKR 100mn) respectively. Several crossings were recorded in Sampath Bank (0.1mn shares at LKR 236.50), Asiri Hospital Holdings (1.2mn shares at LKR 23.00) & Vallibel One (1.0mn shares at LKR 26.00). Aggregate value of crossings represented 5% of the total turnover.

Out of 267counters, 106 slipped, 105 advanced while 56 counters remained unchanged. Cash map improved to 56% from 49%. 9 counters reached 52wk high prices while 6 counters touched 52wk low price levels.

Meanwhile Keells Food Products & Ceylon Cold Stores declared dividends of LKR 3.00 & LKR 5.00 respectively. Keells Food Products counter closed at LKR 91.00 (+1.1%) while Ceylon Cold Stores counter remained unchanged at LKR 265.00.

Piramal Glass was the most favored counter for the session and counter reached 52wk high price of LKR 5.40. Lanka IOC, Textured Jersey Lanka and Access Engineering were among heavily traded counters.

Most of the banks such as National Development Bank (LKR 259.20, -1.0%), DFCC Bank (LKR 228.00, -1.2%), Nations Trust Bank (LKR 99.00, -0.1%), HDFC Bank (LKR 72.00, -0.3%) and Sanasa Development Bank (LKR 93.00, -0.4%) declined during the day. Further Lanka Rating Agency has upgraded the rating of Vallibel Finance’s long & short term rating from ‘BB+’ and NP to ‘BBB-‘ and P3 respectively.

Foreign investors closed the day as net buyers for the eleventh consecutive day with a net inflow of LKR 366mn worth of equities. Foreign participation was 14%. Net foreign inflows were seen in People’s Leasing & Finance (LKR 106mn), Commercial Bank (LKR 64mn), John Keells Holdings (LKR 59mn) while net foreign outflows was mainly seen in Textured Jersey Lanka (LKR 10mn). During the eleven sessions, bourse witnessed net foreign inflow of LKR 4.7bn and year-to-date net foreign inflow increased to LKR 18.9bn.

Lanka Securities Research