Saturday, 1 February 2014 00:01
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Reuters: Shares gained on Friday, helped by foreign buying in blue chips and retail buying in mid caps on earning hopes after bellwether John Keells Holdings posted strong December-quarter earnings.
The main stock index gained 0.33%, or 20.82 points, to 6,248.08, hovering near its seven-month high hit on 24 January.
“Retail buying is coming slowly into the market and retailers are buying mid caps as the interest rates are coming down. Foreigners bought some blue chips,” a stockbroker said on condition of anonymity.
Shares in Asiri Hospital Holdings Plc rose 8.38% to Rs. 20.70, while Aitken Spence gained 3.30% to Rs. 103.40.
Foreign investors were net buyers of Rs. 208.8 million ($1.60 million) worth of shares on Friday extending the year-to-date net foreign inflow to Rs. 1.03 billion. They bought Rs. 22.88 billion of stocks last year.
Stockbrokers said retail and institutional investors were active in the market after interest rates in treasury bills eased at a weekly auction on Wednesday to multi-year lows, making fixed-income assets unattractive.
The index has been in an overbought region since 7 January, Thomson Reuters data shows. It has risen 5.67% so far this year, following a 4.8% gain in 2013, after having fallen in the previous two years.
The day’s turnover was Rs. 1.34 billion, more than last year’s daily average of about Rs. 828.4 million.
