Blue Chip quarterly results hit bourse

By Hiran H.Senewiratne 

The CSE’s S and P SL20 was down by 27.78 pts with the recording of a 23 percent drop in Sampath Bank cumulative profit figures yesterday, stock market analysts said 

Further, top mobile phone company Dialog recorded  a 225 percent increase in profits in its  third quarter results but its cumulative profit increased by only  three percent for the last nine months. This was not reflected in both indices, especially S and P SL20, because most banking sector counters represent the S and P SL20 index. 

Therefore, banking sector counters witnessed a slight drop in their prices with the dropping of Sampath Bank profits by 53 percent, stock market analysts said. In this context, the All Share Price Index went down by 6.96 points and S and P SL20 declined by 27.78 points.

The turnover stood at Rs. 1.57 billion with two crossings. Those crossings came from CTC which crossed 50000 shares to the tune of Rs. 48 million; its share price traded at Rs. 960 and Aitken Spence 450,000 shares crossed for Rs. 20.3 million; its shares trading at Rs. 45.

Top five contributors in the retail market trading were, Expolanka Rs. 283 million (11 million shares traded), Dipped Products Rs. 155 million (484,000 shares traded), Dialog Rs. 95 million (7.9 million shares traded), Sampath Bank Rs. 72.8 million (580,000 shares traded), and Aitken Spence Rs. 62.2 million (1.4 million shares traded). During the day 90.5 million share volumes changed hands in 18277 transactions. 

It said high net worth and institutional investor participation was noted in Dipped Products and JKH. Mixed interest was observed in Expolanka Holdings, Hayleys and Haycarb, while retail interest was noted in Access Engineering, R.I.L. Property and Lanka Walltiles. 

The stock market showed resilience yesterday with profit taking and turnover crossing the now standard at Rs. 1.5 billion average.  ASPI edged up as a result of price gains in counters, such as, JKH, Dialog Axiata and Distilleries.

Sri Lanka rupee was quoted flat at 184.55/65 to the US dollar in the spot market on Thursday while gilt yields were steadily ahead of the bond auction, dealers said. The rupee closed at 184.50/60 to the US dollar on Wednesday.