Dip in health-related companies’ share prices

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

A vaccine jointly developed by Pfizer and BioNTech was 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 infections in ongoing Phase 3 trials, the companies announced Monday.The statement was released as coronavirus cases soared across the world and European stock markets and oil prices jumped on the news. However, in Sri Lanka, several listed companies in the CSE saw a decline in  share prices.  They are into Covid 19 related businesses, especially Dipped Products and Expolanka.

Dipped Products is  into surgical gloves manufacturing and Expolanka is a  freight forwarding company that handles personal protective equipment for the pandemic, stock market analysts said. Hayleys, being the parent company of Dipped Products, had also showed some drop in their share prices during the day, analysts said.

Dipped Products share prices were down by 13 percent or Rs. 49.20. Its share price started trading at Rs. 375.60 and at the end of the day it shot down to Rs. 326.40 and Expolanka share prices started moving in the morning at Rs. 28.20 and at the end of the day it moved down to Rs. 25.60, which was a nine percent drop or a Rs. 2.60 share price drop. In this backdrop, Hayleys share prices witnessed a 12 percent or Rs. 55.50 drop, which started trading at Rs. 439.50 the previous day at at the end of yesterday it moved down to Rs. 326.40.

Amid those developments, the stock market showed mixed reactions. The All Share Price Index went down by 18.61 pts and the S and P SL20 was up by 36.24 pts. However, investor heavy company, Singer Sri Lanka  results were positive but not up to  expected levels in the September quarter, which dampened investor sentiment to a greater extent, stock brokers said. Therefore, its shares dropped by 12 percent or Rs. 7.20. Its shares started trading at Rs. 60.20 at the end of the day it was down by Rs. 53. 

However, the banking sector and JKH share prices slightly moved up and that prevented the All Share Price Index from further going down, market analysts said. Turnover stood at Rs. 3.6 billion and no crossings were recorded. Top five contributors to the turnover were, Expolanka Rs. one billion (37.6 million shares traded), JKH Rs. 240 million (1.7 million shares traded), Dipped Products Rs. 232 million (681,000 shares traded), Hayleys Rs. 195 million (484,000 shares traded) and Access Engineering Rs. 156.5 million (6.3 million shares traded). During the day, 129.76 million share volumes changed hands in 33233 transactions.