By Hiran H. Senewiratne.
CSE trading activities were bullish throughout yesterday on hopes that the IMF may proceed with approval for Sri Lanka’s USD 2.9 billion bailout without the need for assurances of support from the Chinese government side, stock market analysts said.
Other positive factors for the market to perform well were the declaration of dividends last Friday by companies to their shareholders due to recording profits despite the economic turbulence of last year, market analysts said.
Amid those developments both indices moved upwards. The All- Share Price Index went up by 231.9 points and S and P SL 20 rose by 73.5 points. Turnover stood at Rs 2.28 billion with three crossings. Those crossings were reported in Sampath Bank, which crossed 1.5 million shares to the tune of Rs 78 million, its share price was steady at Rs 78 million, JAT Holdings 3.9 million shares crossed for Rs 64.4 million; its shares traded at Rs 16.50 and Hemas Holdings 500,000 shares crossed to the tune of Rs 31.5 million; its shares fetched Rs 63.
In the retail market, top seven companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were; Hemas Holdings Rs 717 million (4.9 million shares traded), SLT Rs 174 million (2.2 million shares), Aitken Spence Rs 148 million (986,000 shares traded), Sampath Bank Rs 130 million (2.6 million shares traded), Melstacorp Rs 117 million (two million shares traded), JKH Rs 101 million (734,000 shares traded) and Lanka IOC Rs 82 million (431,000 shares traded). During the day 98.2 million share volumes changed hands in 20000 transactions.
Yesterday the Central Bank’s US dollar buying rate was Rs 359.44 and the selling rate Rs 369.56. Inflation had come down to the 59.20 level.
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