Stock market remains under bear hug as key indices end lower

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

For the first time in the new year, the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) turned bearish on Monday due to macro concerns as well as profit taking. Trading was sluggish in the early part of yesterday, but it recovered moderately after witnessing some strong buying interest, stock market analysts said.The market commenced the week with a slowdown as the indices snapped their seven-day gaining streak due to a mix of profit-booking in heavyweights and pullback in stocks that recorded unwarranted gains over the last few weeks.

Further, Hunas Falls hotel announced a subdivision of its share. Its one share would be subdivided into a 150 ratio. Due to the announcement it’s share price appreciated by 50 percent or Rs 615. Its share price shot upto Rs 1856 from Rs 1240.

Amid those developments both indices showed a downward trend. All Share Price Index down by 37.42 points and S and P SL20 down by 18.5 points, Turnover stood at Rs 7.9 billion with three crossings. Those crossings were reported in LOLC Finance, which crossed 32 million shares to the tune of Rs 896 million and its share price traded at Rs 28, JKH 270,000 shares crossed for Rs 26.6 million and its share price traded at Rs 156.50 and Hayleys 142,000 shares crossed for Rs 20 million and its share price traded at Rs 141.

In the retail market top seven companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were Expolanka Holdings Rs 726 million (1.9 million shares traded), Browns Investments Rs 682 million (39.8 million shares traded), Sunshine Holdings Rs 549 million (8.2 million shares traded), Vallible One  Rs 456 million (five million shares traded), LOLC Finance Rs 398 million (18.6 million shares traded), Softlogic Life Insurance Rs 292 million (305 million shares traded) and Hayleys Rs 472 million (1.9 million shares traded). During the day 357 million share volume changed hands in 54000 transactions.High net worth and institutional investor participation was noted in LOLC Holdings, Lanka Orix Finance and Softlogic Holdings. Mixed interest was observed in Sunshine Holdings, Expolanka Holdings and Vallibel One, whilst retail interest was noted in Browns Investments, SMB Leasing non-voting and Amana Bank.