Almas White List Index debuts today

From left: IASSL past President and present Council Member Dr. A.P.G.S. De Silva, President Dr. Chitraka Wickramarachchi, Almas Group Director Risvi Abdul Majeed and Director Dr. Harshana Suriyapperuma 

Almas Equities Ltd. marks another milestone in Sri Lanka today with the launch of the pioneering White List Index.

Almas Equities (former Assetline Securities) is one of the founding members of the Colombo Stock Exchange with a history spanning over 30 years.

The objective of introducing a White List Index is to provide an aggregated view of the overall performance of the price movements of the shares in the Almas White List.

Currently, in Sri Lanka, there are two main indexes commonly used by investors known as ASPI (All Share Price Index) and S&P Index. There was a gap up to now among the investor community who uses White list shares for investment purposes where one could not gauge in which direction the overall price movement of White Listed shares. This gap is now addressed with the introduction of the Almas White List Index. 

Almas White List is calculated based on globally accepted standards for White Lists from Dow Jones USA, Securities Commission Malaysia, AAOIFI from the Middle Eastern region, Meezan Pakistan, BSE India and NIFTI India to represent our region. 

A White List Index is a statistical tool that measures market fluctuations of the White Listed share prices. Globally there are different types of stock market-based indexes such as All Share Price index, Sectoral Index, Bench-Mark Index, Market Cap Index and White List Index etc.

Almas always supports sharing of knowledge and creating awareness among investors and people who are interested in capital market engagements. The White List index of Almas is another milestone to add value to the knowledge base by indicating the overall behaviour of prices of White Listed shares.

An integral aspect of an index is the statistical basis used; therefore, it is important to get the expertise on technical aspects from the best. The premier institution on statistical input in Sri Lanka is the Institute of Applied Statistics, Sri Lanka (IASSL) which is incorporated by an Act of Parliament. IASSL is the only professional organisation committed to promoting and assisting the advancement of Statistics for the furtherance of research, planning, development, education, and training in Sri Lanka.

Almas really appreciates the technical expertise extended by the IASSL through the signing of the formal Terms of Reference for continuous engagement. This initiative will assist the industry stakeholders, investors and the public engaged in the capital market. As the Index is made publicly available, this will facilitate promoting statistics among the public for decision-making. 

IASSL President Dr. Chitraka Wickramarachchi (B.Sc. Special (Stat.) (USJP), M.Sc. (App. Stat.) (SL). M.Phil. (Stat.) (SL) PhD (NZ) and former Head of the Department of Statistics University of Sri Jayewardenepura and Senior Lecturer efficiently facilitated the entire process with a positive spirit.

From the inception, the process was assisted by IASSL past President and currently a Council Member Dr. A.P.G.S. De Silva (B.Sc. (Honors, Peradeniya), M.A. (Labor Studies) (Colombo), PGD (Mathematical Statistics) (USJP), PGD (Economic Surveys) (USA), Ph.D. (Appli. Stat.) (Peradeniya), Lecturer at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and Former Senior Director in the Department of statistics). 

At this milestone occasion, Almas recognises the members of the council of IAASL for granting necessary approvals for the initiative.

Almas White list Index uses the float-adjusted market capitalisation of White listed companies where maximum weightage per constituent of the Index is capped to ensure the undue influence of index-heavy counters is minimised. This approach is commonly adopted to improve the reliability of the index by increasing the fair distribution of the weightage among constituents.

Almas White List Index is available online on a daily basis from today at the end of each trading day as phase-one. The index is to be made available on a real-time basis during phase-two of implementation. 

From today onwards users can access the Almas White list index via web, mobile and through Almas CSE daily market summary distributed via email and social media. Additionally, Almas White List Index will also be available on the Almas weekly market summary in-dicating the movements and analysis during the week, along with the past performance. 

Almas intends to continue to create novel modes of engagements where investors and stakeholders have more access to meaningful information and knowledge to make informed investment decisions.