Commercial Bank and DFCC Bank in forefront of upward trend in banking stocks

By Hiran H. Senewiratne

Speculation on banking sector restructuring or consolidation yesterday created considerable interest in banking sector stocks at the CSE, market analysts said.

Accordingly, all banking sector stocks moved upwards, especially those of Commercial Bank and DFCC Bank. The Commercial Bank share price moved up by three percent; its share price moved to Rs 95.60 from Rs 92.90 and DFCC shares rose by Rs 5.90 or 7 percent. Its share price moved up to Rs 87.790 from Rs 82.10.

Both indices during the day moved up. The All- Share Price Index rose by 64.11 points and S and P SL20 rose by 20.83 points. Turnover stood at Rs 3.8 billion with two crossings. Those crossings were reported in JKH, which crossed 1.95 million shares to the tune of Rs 331 million and its shares traded at Rs 170 and NTB 850,000 shares crossed for Rs 89 million; its shares traded at Rs 105.

In the retail market top seven companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were; DFCC Rs 496 million (5.8 million shares traded), JKH Rs 361 million (2.12 million shares traded), NDB Rs 308 million (3.87 million shares traded), Commercial Bank Rs 157 million (1.66 million shares traded), NTB Rs 147 million (1.39 million shares traded), Expolanka Holdings Rs 134 million (890,000 shares traded) and Sampath Bank Rs 104 million (1.39 million shares traded). During the day 89 million share volumes changed hands in 25000 transactions.

Foreign inflows to the CSE, including both primary and secondary market transactions, recorded a marginal net inflow of US $ 2 million during January-June 2023, despite recording a marginal net outflow of US $ 0.9 million in June.