Bourse struggles

Thursday, 15 September 2011 00:45 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Colombo stock market continued its struggle as it finished yet another day on a negative note.

“Selling pressure weighed on indices to dip further. However, towards the final trading hours a subtle positive trend occurred amidst retail investor interest witnessed in Ceylon Guardian Investment Trust and certain speculative counters Activity and turnover levels were relatively low,” NDB Stockbrokers said.

Diversified sector was the main contributor to the market turnover (due to John Keells Holdings) and the sector index decreased by 0.19%. John Keells Holdings was the main contributor to the market turnover with heavy retail activity. The share price increased by Rs 0.60 (0.28%) and closed at Rs 218.

Banks, Finance & Insurance sector also contributed significantly to the market turnover and the sector index decreased by 0.77%.

Retail investor interest was witnessed in Blue Diamonds Jewellery Worldwide and Tess Agro. After an initial selling session, Blue Diamonds Jewellery Worldwide attracted investors while the voting share price closed unchanged and Non-voting share price closed at Rs. 5.30, gaining Rs. 0.10 (2%). Tess Agro continued the surge as the share price gained Rs. 0.50 (9.43%) and closed at Rs. 5.80.

Arrenga Capital said market continued trending down as it shed 59.6 points at its intra-day low of 6,870.44 points before its mild recovery towards the end of trading to conclude the day at 6,895.61 points.

“It is to be noted that the Securities and Exchange Commission had instructed a number of broking firms not to extend their credit facilities based on their liquidity position as at 22.08.2011.

This had created some selling pressure in the market with the clearance date for debtors nearing,” Arrenga said. “However, retail investors continued their dominant play as they actively engaged in low-mid cap counters,” it added.

Following a series of crossings registered in John Keells Holdings over the last few trading days, high net worth investors were seen actively involved in the counter today driving it to top the turnover list with a 11.4% share of today’s turnover. Investors continued to centre their focus in Distilleries as the counter saw 2 parcels totaling to 350k shares being crossed off at Rs. 175. A 10 million crossing was evident in the dormant health sector player, Nawaloka Hospitals done at Rs. 4.

Speculative trading returned on both the voting and non-voting shares of Blue Diamonds leading the counters to reach the top turnover and volume lists for the day.

The non-voting shares saw a total of 16.3 million shares being traded, registering a price gain of 2.0% to close at Rs. 5.1 whilst the voting shares closed flat with around 8.3 million shares being traded in total.