Deals within deals only spark in bourse

Deals within deals along with select speculative play was the only spark in the Colombo stock market yesterday, which otherwise continued to remain lacklustre.

Active play on volume of 3.38 million shares on Royal Ceramics Plc was the highlight, generating a turnover of Rs. 534 million, or 30% of the market’s total.

Deals on Royal Ceramics began with Managing Director Nimal Perera, who is a key player in the market, buying one million shares from Chairman A. Weerasinghe for Rs. 150 each. The latter was partly shedding stake to take profit to raise some cash for a new healthcare venture.  As at 31 March, Weerasinghe held 10.2 million shares in RCL.

Making what was his first purchases of RCL shares, Nimal thereafter began collecting available quantities though at rising prices ranging from Rs. 153 to Rs. 163 per share. He had picked up a further one million shares mostly from Bank of Ceylon.

Later on broker for Sri Lanka Insurance General Fund joined the play, picking up one million RCL shares at Rs. 165 each with seller being Nimal.

Analysts said Nimal booked a tidy capital gain within minutes whilst he continues to hold around one million more RCL shares. RCL, which reported Rs. 1.5 billion in profits for the just concluded 2010/11 financial year, saw its share price close up Rs. 8.40 or 5.56% to Rs. 158 yesterday.

Prior to yesterday’s purchase, SLIC General Fund held 0.66% stake whilst its Life Fund owns 2.27% stake in RCL. EPF also owns 4% stake in RCL.

The market also saw speculative play on a thin 29,600 share volume of HDFC Bank which rose by Rs. 217.30 to Rs. 1,640, whilst it hit an intra-day high of Rs. 1,740. NDB Stockbrokers linked the rise to speculation about a share split whilst others said the HDFC was on renewed demand based on fundamentals.

Banking, finance and insurance sector accounted for Rs. 3,616 million turnover with 38,356 trades. EPF was picking up available quantities of Commercial Bank, whilst second tier stocks such as SMB Leasing and Nations Lanka were actively traded.

A block of one million shares of Asian Hotels traded for Rs. 188 million whilst Distilleries saw foreign buying of 640,000 shares for Rs. 115 million. Overall the market saw net foreign inflow of Rs. 150 million.

Apart from some of these select deals, the stock market continued its struggle for yet another day with both indices down by over 0.5% and turnover remaining modest at Rs. 1.8 billion.

“Negative investor sentiment continued to push the indices lower while activity levels were dominated by trades on manufacturing and banking counters,” said John Keells Stock Brokers.

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Price band stocks continue gaining maximum

The trio in the price band continued to gain by their maximum limit, largely on highly speculative buying.

Beruwela Walk Inn gained by 9.99% or Rs. 26.30 to close at Rs. 289.60 whilst Huejay gained by 9.97% or Rs. 22.10 to Rs. 243.80. The most senior of the trio in the band Alufab gained by 9.11% or Rs. 8.80 to Rs. 105.40.

Alufab yesterday finished its 10-day presence in the band and speculators are likely to sharpen their focus on the security today. Huejay’s last day under the band is Friday whilst Beruwela Walk Inn will be in it until 10 May.

Given the illiquid nature, the gains yesterday were on thin volumes.