Major shipping line MSC in temporary pull out from SL

By Hiran H.Senewiratne 

CSE activities were sluggish and flat yesterday due to the absence of positive things to drive the market owing to the Covid 19 pandemic situation, market observers said.

It is said that major shipping line MSC had decided to temporarily pull  out of Sri Lanka due to a long delay in Colombo port handling operations. As per Customs statistics, earnings from merchandise exports recorded a negative growth of 14.9 percent  in October 2020 down to US $ 831.72 million as compared to $ 977.3 million a year earlier. This has  created a lull in the market, stock market analysts said. 

MSC will go to Dubai and Singapore ports thus diverting revenue from Colombo port. At present a huge backlog is prevalent in the port, market analysts said.  

Consequently, both CSE indices evinced mixed reactions. The All Share Price Index went down by 1.37 points and S and P SL20 rose by 11.26 points. Turnover stood at Rs. 1.39 billion with four crossings. 

Those crossings were reported in Sampath Bank, where 560,000 shares crossed for Rs. 69.7 million, per share value being Rs. 124.50, CTC 69,500 shares crossed for Rs. 67.8 million, a share trading at Rs. 960, Renuka Hotel 462,000 shares crossed for Rs. 30 million, its per share value being Rs. 65 and Aitken Spence 500,000 shares crossed for Rs. 23.3 million with its shares trading at Rs. 46.50.

In the retail market, top five contributors to the turnover were; Expolanka Rs. 160 million ( 6.2 million shares traded), Hemas Hotel Rs. 132 million (1.7 million shares traded), Dipped Products Rs. 87.5 million (270,000 shares traded), Sampath Bank Rs. 60.8 million (488,000 shares traded) and Tokyo (Non Voting) Rs. 56.5 million  (1.08 million shares traded). During the day 58.4 million share volumes changed hands in 15785 transactions. 

Sri Lanka rupee quoted weaker at 184.90/185.15 to the US dollar in the spot market on Monday, while gilt yields were flat in dull market trade, dealers said. The rupee closed at 184.75/80 to the US dollar on Friday.