ECONOMYNEXT – Buying interest was returning to Sri Lanka’s stock market following a downwards trend, brokers said.
“Buying interest is coming back into the market,” Dimantha Mathew, Chief Research and Strategy Officer at First Capital Holdings PLC, told EconomyNext.
“There is sort of a recovery.”
The broader ASPI closed up 1.38 percent, or 216.40 points, at 15,879.33; while the more liquid S&P SL20 Index closed up 1.41 percent, or 66.43 points, at 4,766.57.
“Market is doing well these days. Positive conditions are starting to come up in the market,” Mathew said. “Slightly moving in terms of turnover.”
Turnover fell in the session to 1.66 billion rupees from 3.67 billion rupees in the previous session. Share volume steeply declined to 54,500,476.
“Banking is the sector that went down and it is now coming back up.”
Top contributors to the ASPI were Commercial Bank (ended 2.5 percent stronger at 146.00 rupees), HNB (rose 2.0 to 315.75 rupees), NDB (up 3.3 percent to 108.75 rupees), DFCC Bank (closed up 3.1 percent at 109.00 rupees) and Carson Cumberbatch (up 7.1 percent at 455.00 rupees).
Major contributors to turnover were capital goods (532 million rupees), banks (362 million rupees) and food, beverage and tobacco industry (175 million rupees) stocks.
John Keells Holdings (71 million rupees), Sampath Bank (97 million rupees) and Brown Investments (43 million rupees) saw high turnover.
There was a net foreign outflow of 140 million rupees.
Most active volumes were seen John Keells Holdings in at 14,530,425 (turnover 297,925,598.20 rupees), R I L Property at 7,124,053 (turnover 108,072,890.40 rupees), Browns Investments at 5,860,129 (turnover 43,931,815.50 rupees) and Hela Apparel at 1,858,499 (turnover 7,425,412.40 rupees). (Colombo/Mar21/2025)
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