Wednesday, 21 August 2013 00:08
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Thanks to persisting investment into the banking sector and other blue chips, net foreign inflows to the Colombo stock market topped the Rs. 18 billion mark on Monday.
The latest milestone comes after the bourse had surpassed the Rs. 17 billion mark early last week.
On Monday the market enjoyed a net buying of Rs. 850 million with a single off-board transaction of seven million HNB non-voting shares done at Rs. 117.5 each.
On Wednesday last week HNB saw four crossings totalling 5.9 million of its non-voting shares at Rs. 115 each in a deal worth Rs. 686 million. Last week’s buyers included three foreign funds including Franklin Templeton and UBS whilst major seller was a foreign fund too.
Last week, foreigners bought Rs. 2.24 billion worth of equities, and other stocks which drew net buying were Sampath Bank and Commercial Bank. Foreigners sold Rs. 1.25 billion worth of shares resulting in a net inflow of Rs. 990 million.
Robust net inflows appear to undermine the negativities cast by some analysts on returns from the market and the economy as well as the banking sector’s fortunes this year. The growing figure is encouraging as it is on the back of a record Rs. 39 billion inflow last year.
Last week SEC Chairman Dr. Nalaka Godahewa told a financial sector forum that the potential the market has was further highlighted by the interest of foreign funds like the Wasatch Fund, BBH Mathews Asia Fund, Malaysia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Khazanah and the Aberdeen Group to name a few who have invested in the large CAP stocks such as JKH, COMB, SPEN, and CTC.
Improved investor sentiments despite low volumes have boosted the Colombo stock market’s year to date return to over 10% a respectable performance considering the fact that it was down for two consecutive years since 2011.
