Quarantine curfew extension takes toll on stock market

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

CSE activities showed some bullish sentiments at the beginning of trading yesterday but later the bourse turned negative due to the government’s decision to extend the island wide quarantine curfew until September 21. During the latter part of the day most index weighted companies witnessed substantial selling pressure, stock market analysts said.

However, the market also saw a welcome net foreign inflow of Rs. 105 million. The stock market, however, has suffered a net foreign outflow of over Rs. 41 billion so far this year.

The rebound also saw the market’s value gain by Rs. 100 billion, thereby propelling CSE market capitalization back to the Rs. 4 trillion mark.

Amid those developments both indices moved downwards. All Share Price Index went down by 121 points and S and P SL20 declined by 45.9 points. Turnover stood at Rs 6.9 billion with four crossings. Those crossings were reported in Sampath Bank, where ten million shares crossed for Rs 508 million and its shares traded at Rs 49.60, HNB 1.03 million shares crossed for Rs 468.8 million, its shares traded at Rs. 143, Expolanka 200,000 shares crossed for Rs 34.6 million, its shares fetched Rs 173 and SLT 575,000 shares crossed for Rs 21.3 million, its shares trading at Rs. 37.

In the retail market, companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were, Expolanka Rs. 3.3 billion (18.5 million shares traded), Browns Investments Rs 971 million (101 million shares traded), LOLC Holdings Rs 168 million (310,000 shares traded), Royal Ceramic Rs 150 million (3.5 million shares traded) and RIL Property Ltd Rs 135 million (16.5 million shares traded). During the day 248 million share volumes changed hands in 36000 transactions.

It is said that high net worth and institutional investor participation was noted in Sampath Bank, Expolanka Holdings and Hatton National Bank. Mixed interest was observed in LOLC Holdings, Nestle Lanka and Hayleys, while retail interest was noted in Browns Investments, SMB Leasing and Nation Lanka Finance.

The current exchange rate of 1 US dollar is equal to 199.798 Sri Lankan rupees. This is an increase of 8.168032% (or +15.0872 LKR) compared with the same time last year (10 September 2020), when 1 US dollar equaled 184.711 Sri Lankan rupees.