Colombo bourse snapped the five day winning streak, posting negative returns on both indices. ASI declined by 23.30 index points or 0.37% to end at 6,226.13 and simultaneously 20-scrip S&P SL index dropped by 17.57 index points or 0.51% to close at 3,424.12. Price depreciations in Nestle Lanka (closed at LKR 1,940.00, -2.0%), Ceylon Tobacco Company (closed at 1,085.00, -1.4%) and Cargills (Ceylon) (closed at 140.00, -3.5%) contributed adversely to the index performance.

Daily market turnover reached to LKR 1.3bn with the support of several crossings recorded in Seylan Bank non-voting (11.99mn shares at LKR 40.00), Expolanka (16.54mn shares at LKR 10.40) and Lanka IOC (1.40mn shares at LKR 43.00). Aggregate value of the total crossings represented almost 55% of the turnover. Accordingly Seylan Bank non-voting topped the turnover list with LKR 531mn followed by Expolanka (LKR 239mn) and Lanka IOC (LKR 93mn) respectively.

Losers outweighed the gainers 124 to 92, while 54 counters remained unchanged. Cash map declined to 49% from 57%. 5 stocks touched 52wk high price levels during the session.

Moreover HVA Foods, Laugfs Gas non-voting and Expolanka attracted heavy investor interest during the day.

*Please note that by the time of writing this report, CSE has not released relevant data to provide information on foreign activity of today’s trading session.

Lanka Securities Research