Saturday, January 15, 2011

Bull run pauses, bourse virtually flat for 2nd day

The Colombo bourse yesterday saw an abbreviated trading day ending with the indices closing in opposite directions – the All Share Price Index up 10.72 points (0.15%) while the Milanka was down 25.75 points (0.35%) on a turnover of Rs.1.75 billion, down from the previous day’s Rs.3.5 billion, with gainers and losers neck-to-neck with 81 decliners against 77 advancers.

"It was a quiet day with trading volumes down partly on account of the market closing at 12 noon because of Thai Pongal," Prashan Fernando of Acuity Stockbrokers said. "Once again trading was dominated by retail activity."

Retailers pushed up volumes in Panasian Power, Laugfs Gas (both voting and non-voting), First Capital (previously CF Venture Fund), ERI, Dankotuwa and LOLC.

"There was new retail interest in LOLC which moved up Rs.6.60 to close at Rs.140.80 on nearly 0.5 million shares traded between Rs.136 and Rs.147," Fernando of Acuity said.

The top business generator was Central Finance gaining Rs.41.40 to close at Rs.900 on nearly 0.2 million shares done between Rs.860 and Rs.905 including two crossings accounting for nearly 150,000 shares at a price of Rs.875.

The voting and non-voting shares of Laugfs continued to see their prices dip with the voting shares down Rs.2.20 to close at Rs.45 on nearly 2.6 million shares while Laugfs X was down Rs.2.30 to Rs.33.60 on nearly 1.1 million shares.

"Overall it was a quiet day compared to what we saw earlier in the week," brokers said.

Odel announced a dividend of 25 cents per share XD from Jan. 26 with payment on Feb. 27 while HVA Foods said that applications covering 471.6 million shares had been received from 11,869 applicants. Approximately 19.9 million shares are on offer.

source - www.island.lk

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