Monday, August 15, 2011

Market remains volatile; regulatory decision likely to give direction

Point of view

Markets see-sawed over the week as regulators deferred the much anticipated decision on the broker credit-easing rule. Bourse gains over the week were driven mainly by retail investors, with Land & Property stocks in particular seeing a slight run on speculative trading. Markets closed the week on a positive note as retail sentiment improved in anticipation of a final decision over the relaxation of margin buying rules by early next week. Strong corporate earnings are likely to continue flooding in over the course of the upcoming week. However, the outcome of the SEC’s decision on credit easing is likely to dominate sentiment and overshadow the thus far strong corporate earnings.

The market gained marginally with both the ASPI and MPI recording a week on week gain to close at 6833.06 and 6186.71, respectively.

The ASPI increased by 1.21 percent and the MPI increased by 0.56 percent.

The weekly turnover value recorded a 74.46 percent increase to Rs 15.02 billion, amounting to a daily average value of Rs 3.00 billion, when compared with last week’s daily average turnover of Rs 1.72 billion.

Asian Alliance, Seylan Development Plc and East West accounted for 41.57 percent of the week’s total turnover value.

The number of shares traded increased by 30.79 percent, averaging 111.28 million shares traded daily as against 85.09 million traded last week.

The Banking and Finance sector led the turnover in value this week, accounting for 31.31 percent of turnover in value amounting to Rs 4.70 billion.

The Land and Property sector was the second highest contributor to turnover, accounting for 23.91 percent amounting to Rs 3.59 billion.

Third highest on the turnover value list was the Manufacturing sector with 13.56 percent or Rs 2.05 billion.
Volume of turnover for the week was dominated by the Land and Property sector with 159.40 million shares being traded or 28.65 percent of volume of turnover.

The Banking and Finance sector followed, representing 19.91 percent of total turnover volume, or 110.76 million shares traded. Third highest contributor to turnover volume was the Manufacturing sector, which accounted for 19.64 percent or 109.30 million shares. Market Capitalization as at today’s close was Rs 2448.91 billion recording a gain of 1.5 percent or Rs 37.27 billion in value as against last week’s close.

East West was the major price gainer with a 77.1 percent increase this week to close at Rs 41.80 from last week’s closing price of Rs 23.60.

Lanka Hospitals Corporation Plc was the second largest price gainer, recording a 49.1 percent increase to close at Rs 55.90 from Rs 37.50. City Housing and Real Estate Co. gained 48.4 percent from its previous price of Rs 18.20 to close at Rs 27.00.

Singalanka was the major price loser over the week, declining 65.1 percent to close at Rs 554.80. Confifi Hotel Holdings Plc and Eastern Merchant were also major losers with a decline of 22.5 percent to Rs 226.00 and 17.2 percent to Rs 2506.70, respectively. Lanka Ashok Leyland Plc and Kelani Cables declined 15.0 percent and 13.4 percent, respectively. Foreign investors remained net sellers corresponding to the volatility witnessed in global markets. The net selling position over the week amounted to Rs 1258.91 million, relative to last week’s net selling position of Rs 546.08 million. Foreign purchases for the week total to Rs 572.94 million as against Rs 478.30 million recorded last week.

Blue Diamonds [NV] topped the volume list recording
source - www.dailynews.lk

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