Gloom descends on CSE for second consecutive day over corporate sector tax issues

By Hiran H. Senewiratne

President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday hinted that new taxes would be introduced for the corporate sector in keeping with the tax reforms recommended by the IMF. This resulted in a gloomy picture being painted for the CSE yesterday as well, market analysts said.

The stock market started with a mixed reaction but at the end of the session developed in a positive direction. Further, the turnover level and trade volume had remarkably declined due to certain negative developments in the internal environment, market analysts added.

Consequently, both indices moved upwards slightly. The All- Share Price Index went up by 15.04 points and S and P SL20 rose by 5.57 points. Turnover stood at Rs 1.5 billion with one crossing. The crossing was reported in Distilleries, which crossed 3 million shares to the tune of Rs 78 million; its shares traded at Rs 26.

In the retail market top seven companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were; JKH Rs 308 million (1.6 million shares traded), Ceylon Grain Elevators Rs 96.8 million (558,000 shares traded), Softlogic Capital Rs 79.8 million (6.5 million shares traded), Capital Alliance Rs 76.6 million (916,000 shares traded), CIC Holdings Rs 76 million (one million shares traded), Distilleries Rs 57.2 million (2.1 million shares traded), and Hayleys Fabrics Rs 47.9 million (1 million shares traded). During the day 55 million share volumes changed hands in 14000 transactions.

Yesterday the US dollar buying rate was Rs 316.27 and selling rate Rs 328.06.