Investors cautious as UNHCR issues dig in

By Hiran H.Senewiratne 

CSE activities were somewhat bullish last morning and turned relatively positive at the end of the day with the  approval of the Chinese US 1.5 billion loan. However, due to the ongoing UNHCR sessions going against Sri Lanka and political instability continuing, stock market investors are a bit cautious to invest in local shares, market analysts said.    

Both local and  foreign participation in the market remained not at the expected  levels and the stock market touched the Rs. 1 billion turnover mark with a lot of difficulty  yesterday, analysts said.

Although both indices were positive yesterday they were not able to recover fully because on the previous Wednesday the market was down by 80 points. The All Share Price Index went up by 34.82 points and S and P SL20 rose by 27.83 points yesterday.

Turnover stood at Rs. 1.03 billion with two crossings. Those crossings were reported in LOLC, which crossed 100,000 shares to the tune of Rs. 32 million, its shares trading at Rs. 320 and JKH 133,000 shares crossed for Rs. 20 million, its shares trading at Rs. 150.

In the retail market five companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were; Expolanka Rs. 149 million (3.1 million shares traded), Dipped Products Rs. 145.2 million (2.9 million shares traded), JKH Rs. 144 million (958,000 shares traded), Sampath Bank Rs. 80.6 million (520,000 shares traded) and LOLC Rs.  57.3 million (180,000 shares traded). During the day 29.3 million share volumes changed hands in 10726 transactions.     

The Materials sector was the top contributor to market turnover and the banking and financial sectors were the next highest contributors to the market turnover . National Development Bank and Senkadagala Finance announced right issues.  

 Sri Lanka’s rupee quoted weaker at 198.00/198.10 levels to the US dollar in the one-week forward market on Friday, while bond yields remained unchanged, dealers said. The rupee last closed in the one- week forward market at 197.75/198.00 to the US dollar on Wednesday.