CSE recovers from steep fall, wipes off previous day’s losses

By Hiran H.Senewiratne 

CSE activities recovered yesterday following the steep fall of the market on the previous day due to fears in certain sections on a Covid 19 third wave outbreak in the country, stock market analysts said.

Amid those developments, CSE in the morning was a bit sluggish and afterwards it began to recover significantly to wipe off half of the previous day’s losses. The  stock market has lost Rs. 127 billion in value during the past three sessions with gains enjoyed for two weeks erased, sparking fresh investor concerns.  Further, apart from continuous selling pressure there was little buying interest also in the market, stock market analysts said.

Both indices moved upwards. All Share Price Index was up by 78.33 points and S and P SL20 up by 26.96 points. Turnover stood at Rs. 2.96 billion with two crossings. A crossing was reported in HNB, which crossed 301,000 shares to the tune of Rs. 39.7 million, its share price being Rs. 132 and Nestle 25000 shares crossed for Rs. 25 million, its shares traded at Rs. 1000.

In the retail market top five companies that contributed to the turnover were, Browns Investments Rs. 455 million (72.9  million shares traded), HNB Rs. 367  million (2.8 million shares traded), Hayleys Rs. 277.5 million (3.6 million shares traded), Dipped Products Rs. 225 million (3.97 million shares traded) and LOLC Rs. 218 million (672,000 shares traded). During the day 138.8 million share volumes changed hands in 18149 transactions.

Net foreign outflow was Rs. 88.6 million as against Rs. 188 million on Monday. The year-to-date outflow was Rs. 20.7 billion. 

Stock market analysts said that even though the market’s recent downward trend is disappointing, it believes that the bourse will gradually reverse course with the release of the FY2021 corporate results providing tailwind support.”Consequently, we advise investors to take advantage of the current weakness and focus on accumulating fundamentally robust high growth sectors with a long term investment horizon,”stock market analysts said.