Foreigners step up buying; net inflow tops Rs. 400 m in two days

Wednesday, 25 July 2012 01:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

‘What do foreigners see that locals don’t?’ was a question posed at a recent stock market forum, and proving its relevance, non-nationals continue to dominate the Colombo Bourse with net inflows topping Rs. 400 million in the past two days.

Yesterday net foreign buying amounted to Rs. 251 million, on the back of Rs. 178 million on Monday. Year to date figure is Rs. 24 billion. During the first two days foreigners had bought Rs. 520 million worth of shares. Foreign participation was 38% of total market turnover yesterday whilst on Monday it was 33.5%. Foreigners were active on Commercial Bank non-voting shares which dominated turnover with Rs. 100 million, HNB non-voting, which saw a turnover of Rs. 65 million and Distilleries, which produced Rs. 48 million. On Monday foreign funds picked up JKH as well as Union Bank and Sampath Bank shares. A big parcel of 6% stake or 4.37 million shares of Dankotuwa Porcelain traded at Rs. 12.20 each in a deal worth Rs. 53 million with Japanese firm International Ceramic Inc., doing a transfer.

Turnover yesterday was a healthy Rs. 520 million, above Monday’s Rs. 332 million, whilst indices closed marginally negative.

Among other active blue chips were Carson Cumberbatch, Nestle and Ceylon Tobacco, whilst the market also saw some renewed interest in stocks such as Pan Asia Bank, Guardian Capital, Ascot Holdings, LAUGFS Gas non-voting, HVA Foods, Free Lanka Capital, Richard Peiris and Softlogic Holdings.

“The Bourse extended its sluggish momentum as it dipped below its intra-day support level by mid-day to touch a low of 4862.78 points (down by 19 points) in ASPI. A slight recovery was witnessed thereafter as the broader index closed largely flat whilst the MPI and the S&P SL20 index also followed a similar pattern. However four large off-board transactions fuelled the stagnant volume level and thereby the turnover within the initial hour followed by another off-market deal during mid-day,” Softlogic Stockbrokers said.