CSE trading halts once again; indices dip

By Hiran H.Senewiratne 

Regular trading at the CSE was temporarily halted for 30 minutes from 1.28 p.m. to 1.58 p.m yesterday as the S&P SL20 index dropped by 5 percent  during the trading session. After the service breaker trigger, the market began to recover but during the latter part of the day, due to selling pressure, market recovery faded away, market analysts said.

It is said that the S&P SL20 index fell by 131.42 points to 2,898.37 and the All Share Price Index (ASPI) also fell by 268.30 points to 7,229.21. 

Standard Chartered Bank and Barclays Bank – two global banks and managers of former international sovereign bonds (ISBs) – said they are “underweight” on Sri Lanka, flagging off concerns over the country’s debt sustainability, repayment and external reserves. Sri Lanka also began facing a crucial session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which negatively impacted investor sentiment.

Despite the negativity, CSE saw a welcome net foreign inflow of Rs. 42.3 million as against an outflow of Rs. 284 million on Friday. Year to date net foreign outflow has crossed the Rs. 12 billion mark.

Amid those developments, turnover stood at Rs. 2.83 billion with three crossings. Those crossings were reported in Sampath Bank, which crossed 500,000 shares to the tune of Rs. 78 million and its shares traded at Rs. 156, Commercial Bank 650,000 shares crossed for Rs. 56.7 million, its shares traded at Rs. 86 and Access Engineering one million shares crossed for Rs. 24 million, its shares trading at Rs. 24.

In the retail market, top five companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were, Expolanka Rs. 364.5 million (8.8 million shares traded), Browns Investments Rs. 286 million (52.2 million shares traded), Dipped Products Rs. 268 million (5.3 million shares traded), LOLC Rs. 209.6 million (573 million shares traded) and Haycarb Rs. 151.7 million (1.5 million shares traded). During the day, 134.4 million share volumes changed hands in 20206 transactions. 

  Sri Lanka’s rupee quoted stronger at 193.50/00 to the US dollar in the spot market on Tuesday, dealers said. The rupee last closed in the spot market at 193/194.25 to the dollar on Monday.