CSE ends lower ahead of lockdown despite high turnover 

REUTERS: Shares ended lower on Friday after the Government announced a 10-day lockdown as COVID-19 infections and deaths overwhelmed the island nation’s health system.

The CSE All-Share index closed 0.24% lower at 8,240.06 points but clocked in a weekly gain of 3.05%, its first in four.

The benchmark index, which rose as much as 0.67% earlier in the session, gave up gains with financial stocks offsetting strength in the industrial sector. The equity market’s turnover was Rs. 5.61 billion. 

Trading volume on the exchange dropped to 225.4 million shares from 310.9 million shares in the previous session.

Foreign investors were net sellers in the equity market, offloading shares worth Rs. 771.1 million.

Sri Lanka’s largest non-banking financial institution LOLC Finance PLC and Commercial Leasing and Finance PLC were the top drags in the index, closing 8.3% and 4.6% lower, respectively.

The Central Bank on Thursday tightened its monetary policy, making it the first in Asia to raise interest rates since the pandemic began.

The island nation reported 186 fatalities due to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 6,790.

Hospitals in Sri Lanka have been overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients as the highly transmissible Delta variant surges through the population. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was expected to address the country later in the day.

About a quarter of Sri Lanka’s population has been fully vaccinated, a majority of them with China’s Sinopharm vaccine.