Healthcare shares in marked appreciation

By Hiran H.Senewiratne 

Melstacorp shares started  trading at Rs. 47.60 at the CSE yesterday and at the end of the day they moved up to Rs. 49.90. Meanwhile, shares in healthcare sector counters also appreciated when the government reportedly began discussing with private hospitals the possibility of treating Covid -19 patients in their institutions.

Consequently, share prices in several listed private hospitals moved up. Asiri Hospital shares moved up by 20 percent. They moved up from Rs. 26.40 to Rs. 29.20, which was a Rs. 2.80 appreciation, Asiri Surgical shares moved up by Rs. 2.10 or 14 percent. Its shares moved from Rs. 15 to Rs. 17.10, Lanka Hospital shares moved up by seven percent or Rs. 3.10; they moved to Rs. 48.10 from Rs. 45 and Nawaloka Hospitals shares moved up by 11 percent or 60 cents. They rose to Rs. 6.20  from Rs. 5.60.

Amid those developments both indices moved upwards. All Share Price Index went up by 42.08 points and S and P SL20 by 6.84 points. The turnover stood at Rs. 2.26 billion with two crossings. Those crossings were reported in Dialog where 2.2 million shares crossed to the tune of Rs. 27.3 million; its shares traded at Rs. 12.40 and Asiri Hospitals 730,000 shares crossed for Rs. 20.1 million, its shares trading at Rs. 27.50.

In the retail market top five companies that contributed to the turnover were Melstacorp Rs. 283 million (5.6 million shares traded), JKH Rs. 211.8 million (1.38 million shares traded), Browns Investment Rs. 203 million (56 million shares traded), Hayleys Rs. 113 million (297,000 shares traded), and RIL Rs. 95.9 million (10.1 million shares traded). During the day 168 million share volumes changed hands in 3512 transactions.