Business
Price appreciation in banking sector counters
by Hiran H.Senewiratne
CSE activities were positive yesterday and this was particularly true of banking sector counters which witnessed some price appreciation. The backdrop to these developments was the Central Bank announcement on a debt moratorium for business entities until March 2021, that have been affected by the COVID 19 pandemic.
‘This move would not affect the asset quality of banks because if the moratorium is not granted the relevant companies will have to shut down and banks will not be able to recover loans, stock market analysts said.
Further, government plans to open the country for the tourism sector plus the Central Bank policy rate consistency have positively impacted banking counters. Therefore, share prices in NDB, HNB, Commercial Bank, Sampath Bank and others appreciated, stock brokers said.
Amid those developments both indices turned positive. The All Share Price Index went up by 76.2 points and S and P SL20 by 56.8 points. Turnover stood at Rs. 3.26 billion with five crossings. Those crossings were reported in NDB, which crossed 2.5 million shares for two different prices ( two million shares at Rs. 76 and 5000,000 shares at Rs. 80.50), JKH 500,000 shares crossed for Rs. 90.7 million, its share price being Rs. 151.40, Access Engineering two million shares crossed for Rs. 51 million, per share value Rs. 25.50, Durdans Hospital (Ceylon Hospital Limited) 400,000 shares crossed for Rs. 40 million, its share price traded at Rs. 100 and Union Bank two million shares crossed for Rs. 23 million, its shares trading at Rs. 11.50.
In the retail market, top five contributors to the turnover were; Expolanka Rs. 199 million (7.7 million shares traded), JKH Rs. 198 (1.3 million shares traded), CIC Holdings Rs. 124.6 million (720,000 shares traded), NDB Rs. 107.4 million (1.35 million shares traded) and TJLanka Rs. 102 million (2.65 million shares traded). During the day, 213.5 million share volumes changed hands in 32012 transactions.