Hayleys Group subsidiaries’ shares highest traded at CSE

by Hiran H. Senewiratne 

Three leading subsidiaries of the Hayleys Group became the highest traded companies in the CSE yesterday. Hayleys, Haycarb and Dipped Products were those companies that were heavily traded ahead of a subdivision of their shares on February 10, stock market analysts said.

Among the three companies, Haycarb shares appreciated by 29 percent or Rs. 371. Its shares started trading at Rs. 1268 and at the end of the day they moved to Rs. 1640. Recently, the Hayleys Group announced to go for a subdivision of its shares in several subsidiaries, to increase market capitalization, analysts said.

Meanwhile, the market was rather sluggish and selling pressure was mainly noted in tile sector counters and in the LOLC Group. Tile sector counter witnessed selling pressure with speculation that tile importers were seeking presidential intervention to lift the import restriction to prevent a tile shortage in the country. This move has created some negative perception for local tile companies analysts said. Further, LOLC share prices begun to stabilize yesterday following the fast rally on its shares during the last few weeks, market sources said.

Amid those developments both indices moved downwards. The All Share Price Index went down by 127.11 points and S and P SL-20 declined by 62.79 points. The turnover stood at Rs. 4.8 billion without a single crossing. In the retail market, top five contributors to the turnover were, Haycarb Rs. 608 million (392,000 shares traded), Expolanka Rs. 443.4 million (8.1 million shares traded), Dipped Products Rs. 420 million (567,000 shares traded), LOLC Rs. 299 million (667,000 shares traded) and Sampath Bank Rs. 297 million (1.7 million shares traded). During the day 142.8 million share volumes changed hands in 34361 transactions. 

Stock trading volumes in the first 22 days of 2021 had exceeded the annual trading volumes seen in 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, the Colombo Stock Exchange said.

Sri Lanka rupee quoted steady around 193.00/195.00 levels in the spot market on Monday, while bond yields remained unchanged in dull market trade, dealers said. The rupee closed wide 193.70/194.25 to the US dollar on Friday. In the secondary market, bond yields remained flat in dull market trade, dealers said.