Profit-taking on the Colombo’s Stock Exchange last Friday overshadowed the previous day’s rally following the removal of the price band, Acuity Stockbrokers said in a market report.
Noting that the market commenced last week after the New Year holidays on a lackluster note with average turnover levels at Rs.0.3 billion by mid-week, the SEC’s removal of the 10% price band imposed to curb price volatility revived markets on Thursday, the report said.
However, the 111 point rally of the All Share Price Index on Thursday following invigorated retail investor confidence was swallowed up by profit taking on Friday that pushed the ASPI down 61 points with the day’s turnover of Rs.0.6 million being the highest for the week.
"We expect market activity in the week ahead to show moderate improvement given the end of the recent spate of holidays," Acuity said.
"Markets are also likely to respond positively to the upgrades in the trading system expected this week."
Acuity also reported that the rupee depreciated 1.4% against the dollar amidst significant importer dollar demand as the currency market braces itself for the possibility of the Central Bank stopping its supply of dollars to meet oil import bills.
Last week saw market indices closing higher against the previous holiday-shortened week with the ASPI up 14.27 points (0.29%).
Acuity said that JKH led turnover value contributing Rs.457.9 million or 24.37% of total market turnover.
NDB with Commercial Bank too made significant contributions of 7.67% and 4.19% respectively.
Total weekly turnover at Rs.1.88 billion averaged Rs.375.88 million a day against the previous week’s daily average of Rs.163.21 million – a gain of over 100%.
Market capitalization too recorded a week-on-week gain of over 0.58% to close the week at Rs.2,029.61 billion, Acuity said.
Foreign participation posted net inflow of Rs.142.83 million, averaging Rs.28.57 a day against the previous week’s net buying position of Rs.9.11million.
The Acuity report said that average foreign daily purchases amounted to Rs.150.05 million against the previous week’s average of Rs.27.75 million while the daily average foreign sales amounted to Rs.121.49 million with Dialog and Swarnamahal Finance leading foreign sales in value terms.
Ceylon Tobacco and Commercial Bank led foreign purchase transactions during the week.
John Keells Stockbrokers said in its weekly report that the market had rebounded during the week on the back of gains on large caps including Ceylon Tobacco, Commercial Bank and HNB.
"The week’s activity was mainly driven by institutional and foreign participation on diversified and banking counters," the report said.
source - www.island.lk
No comments:
Post a Comment