Bourse lacklustre ahead of holiday

The Colombo Bourse depicted a rather stagnant mode on the back of the holiday mood of investors clouding activity levels, which slid to its lowest since 11 December 2009.

Mid-day turnover remained at a mere Rs. 34 million in the absence of large block trades. CSE ended the day with a turnover of Rs. 116 million.

Softlogic Stockbrokers said the benchmark ASI took a volatile path as it inched up to an intra-day high of 5,419.01 points (+11.9 points) during the initial hour followed by a gradual down turn leading to an intra-day low at 5,386.62 points (-20.49 points) before it slipped 22 points at its close of 5,384.89.

Major losses in Aitken Spence (-2.93%), Commercial Leasing and Finance (-5.41%), Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings (-3.98%) and Bukit Darah (-1.19%) outweighed the contributions from Sri Lanka Telecom (+2.38%), Hatton National Bank (+2.11%) and John Keells Holdings (+0.1%).

The MPI sketched a zigzag pattern touching 4,973.58 points at its peak Vs 4,934.75 points at its intra-day low.



The index slid 19 points at its close of 4,935.51 points. The S&P SL20 index fluctuated in a similar tone with its intra-day high at 2,974.60 which edged down to reach an intra-day low of 2,962.06 points before it closed with a marginal gain.

John Keells Holdings dominated the day’s trading as it gained more interest towards the latter trading hours which led to a peak of Rs. 212.80 (+0.6%) before settling to close with 0.1% gain at Rs. 211.80.

Finance companies gathered interest as People’s Finance and Central Finance saw some activity during the latter trading hours. The former saw its price appreciate as much as 11.2% at Rs. 34.70 before its close at Rs. 33.80 (8.3%), following the company being placed on rating watch positive by Fitch Ratings.

Colombo Dockyard witnessed renewed interest with most of its transactions taking place at its intra-day low level of Rs. 215.00 (-1.8%). Commercial Credit and Finance was witnessed in the top turnover slot for the day with an on-board pick of around 190,000 shares at Rs. 16 each after which a steep downtrend led to the counter losing -3.2% at its close of Rs. 15.10.

Softlogic Holdings saw some interest with its announcement of the opening of its new Mothercare outlet. Two tranches carrying 233,000 shares were transacted on-board at its closing price of Rs. 10.50.

Retail activity remained minimal while slight interest surrounded Blue Diamonds [Non-Voting] (-5.8%), Browns Investments (+0.0%) and Panasian Power (+0.0%).

SMB Leasing and Asia Asset Finance touched new 52-week low levels of Rs. 0.90 and Rs. 2.20 respectively while Coco Lanka, Touchwood Investments, Vidullanka, Agstar Fertilizers and Beruwala Resorts continued to trade at their 52-week low levels, Sotlogic Stockbrokers said.

Lanka Securities said cash map yesterday was 30%. Foreign participation was 15% of total market turnover whilst net foreign buying was Rs. 29 million.

“The 14-day RSI still remains at oversold region and the market PE has now declined to 11x, below the PEs of the MSCI emerging markets (12x) and MSCI frontier emerging markets (13x),” Lanka Securities added.