Up and down trend in CSE trading

By Hiran H. Senewiratne

CSE  was sluggish last morning and witnessed  some  decline from 40 – 50 points during mid session but recovered during the  latter  part  of the day and settled on a  positive  note, stock market analysts said.

The  market  appears to be volatile due  to an  increase in the number of  Covid 19  patients in the  country and there was also speculation on the Port City Bill, which  is being  debated in parliament, stock market analysts noted.

During the day banking and manufacturing  sector counters saw gains  in the  market. Specially Sampath Bank and Commercial  Bank, performed well in the  market  yesterday, due to their  quarterly results  being  positive. However, leading  manufacturing  companies, such as Haycarb and Dipped  Products, although reporting good quarterly results, compared to the  third  quarter they have indicated a slight dip. Haycarb  recorded a 6% or Rs. 6.20 drop  of  its share price. Its  shares started  trading  at Rs. 105.75 at the end of the day,  they moved  down to Rs. 99.50.

Dipped Products’  share price  was down by 1.4% or 80 cents. Its shares started trading at Rs. 56.90 and  the  end of the day declined  to Rs. 56.10.Amid those developments, both indices  showed a  downward  trend. All Share Price Index went down   by 14.11 points and S and P SL 20 went down by  2.36 points. Turnover stood at Rs. 2.32 billion with two crossings. One  of the crossings was  reported  in Union Bank, which crossed 6.58 million shares  to the  tune  of Rs. 69 million, its shares traded at Rs. 10.50 and Expo Lanka 806,000 shares crossed for Rs. 37.8 million, its shares   traded at Rs. 46.90.

In the  retail market, top five companies that mainly contributed to the  turnover were; Browns Investments Rs. 444.2 million (65.6 million shares traded ),Haycarb Rs. 270  million (2.7 million shares traded ), Royal Ceramic Rs. 265 million (6.9 million shares traded ),Dipped Products Rs. 209 million (3.7 million shares traded )and Expo Lanka Rs. 195 million (4.1 million shares traded ).During the day 143.7 million share  volumes change hands in 22175 transactions.