Blue chips boost Bourse

The Colombo stock market opened the Christmas week on a positive note with investors showing preference on Blue Chips.  “Both indices edged up during early trading but MPI closed slightly lower as prices of COMB and JKH came down.

Foreign activity was also witnessed in selected counters,” NDB Stockbrokers said.



Bank Finance & Insurance and Diversified sectors were the highest contributors to the market turnover. Bank Finance & Insurance sector index increased by 0.10% while Diversified sector index decreased by 0.09%.

Commercial Bank made the highest contribution to the market turnover with six crossings (249,600 shares at Rs. 258; 857,500 shares at Rs. 257 and 199,000 shares at Rs. 254) while the share price decreased by Rs. 3.20 (1.24%) and closed at Rs. 257. In total 1.38 million shares of COMBank traded for Rs. 355.6 million.

Premier conglomerate John Keells Holdings also contributed to the market turnover with a crossing of 140,000 shares at Rs. 299. The share price decreased by Rs. 0.80 (0.27) and closed at Rs. 298.90.

Another crossing was recorded for 909,200 shares of Tokyo Cement (Non-voting) at Rs 38.

The Colombo Bourse year to date has gained by 88.4% thereby remaining Asia’s best performer in 2010 ahead of second-ranked Indonesia’s 43.5%.

It has fallen 11.6 percent since hitting a record high on 4 October, mainly on a liquidity shortage, and has slowed down with year-end settlements and the impending holidays.

Foreign investors have sold a net 25.5 billion rupees in shares this year and on Tuesday they sold a net 220 million rupees.

The bourse is trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 18.9, the highest in Asia and global emerging markets, compared with all-Asia’s 13.1 and global emerging markets’ 12.2, Thomson Reuters StarMine data showed. The CSE’s 14-day relative strength index is at 41.8, towards the lower neutral limit of 30.