Kotagala Plantation shares notch unusual high price

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

Trading activities at the CSE were sluggish but Kotagala Plantation noted an unusually high price and volume movement for the second consecutive day, yesterday. The market was slow until mid-day and later turned rather volatile. However, towards the latter part of the day, investor sentiment improved to positive levels, stock analysts said.

Kotagala Plantation Company, being not a highly performing company in the stock market, had its shares priced at Rs. 5 on the previous day. Its share price went up to Rs. 6.30 and yesterday its shares settled at Rs. 5.90.

It is said the indices closed on a positive note for the second consecutive session mainly on price gains in Expolanka, while other heavyweight stocks, such as Browns Investments, Commercial Leasing and LOLC- Development Bank also moved higher during the session, indicating some positive bias in the market.

Amid those developments both indices moved upwards. The All Share Price Index went up by 109.76 points and S and P SL20 rose by 45.33 points. Turnover stood at Rs. 2.91 billion with four crossings. Those crossings were reported in Nestle, which crossed 50,000 to the tune of Rs. 62.5 million and its shares traded at Rs 1250, Royal Ceramic one million shares crossed for Rs. 42 million, its shares traded at Rs. 42, Janashakthi one million shares crossed for Rs. 25 million, its shares fetched Rs. 25 and Sampath Bank 468,000 shares crossed for Rs. 23.2 million, its shares traded at Rs. 49.50.

In the retail market, top five companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were, Expolanka Rs. 883 million (five million shares traded), Browns Investments Rs. 402 million (43 million shares traded), Kotagala Plantations Rs. 179 million (28.9 million shares traded), LOLC Rs. 131 million (253,000 shares traded) and Eden Hotel Rs. 92.5 million (3.4 million shares traded). During the day 135 million share volumes changed hands in 21933 transactions.

Former top stock JKH maintained its recent uptick with share prices gaining 2 per cent to Rs. 134.25, though on thin volumes. Most valued and profitable Expolanka led to contributions to the index gain as well as in turnover.

Meanwhile, the US dollar to Sri Lankan rupee exchange rate was reported at Rs. 198.99 yesterday.