Increased excise duties and fuel price revisions dampening share market

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

CSE activities fell at mid-day due to increases in excise duties and recent fuel price revisions, pushing the stock market to red territory yesterday. The overall market is down because the increase in excise duties and fuel price revisions are slowing down investor sentiment to a great extent, stock market analysts said.

The All- Share Price Index went down by 47.61 points and S and P SL20 declined by 16.75 points. Turnover stood at Rs 2.26 billion with two crossings. The crossing were reported in Lanka IOC, which crossed 1.8 million shares to the tune of Rs 360 million; its shares traded at Rs 200.25 and Agtar PLC, which crossed 6.25 million shares to the tune of Rs 100 million, its shares traded at Rs 16.

In the retail market top seven companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were, Softlogic Capital Rs 461 million (36.2 million shares traded), Lanka IOC Rs 227 million (1.1 million shares traded), Softlogic Life Insurance Rs 168 million (1.8 million shares traded), Capital Alliance Rs 158 million (5.8 million shares traded), Agstar PLC Rs 142 million (8.8 million shares traded), Ambeon Rs 89.6 million(7.2 million shares trade) and First Capital Holdings Rs 51 million (1.1 million shares traded). During the day 112 million share volumes changed hands in 18000 share transactions. The revision on fuel and excise duties has created a negative investor sentiment. Due to that selling pressure was noted in most stocks.

Yesterday, the Central Bank- announced US dollar buying rate was Rs 359.97 and selling rate Rs 371.57.