Online edition of Daily News

The Colombo Bourse's All Share Price Index (ASPI) crossed the psychologically important 1000 points level yesterday to close the trading day with the ASPI reaching 1036.1 points, which is an eight-year high.

The Colombo Bourse recorded its highest ever daily turnover of Rs. 896.5 million yesterday. The previous highest Rs. 866.9 million was on December 10, 2001.

The Bourse also made history with the highest turnover it recorded in the 105-year old trading history. The previous highest Rs. 866.9 million was on December 10, 2001.

The Milanka index reached 2023.4 points up from 1913.1 points of the previous trading day, which is another milestone. The CSE recorded a turnover of Rs. 6.5 billion within 16 market days during June 2003. This is the highest monthly turnover recorded for a given month. The previous highest, Rs. 5.5 billion was in February 1994.

Large parcels of Aitken Spence, Asia Capital, Asian Hotels, Bairaha Farms, Blue Diamonds, Caltex, Ceylinco Seylan, Colombo Land, Commercial Bank, Dankotuwa Porcelain, Distilleries, Grain Elevators, HNB, JKH, Apollo, Merchant Bank, NDB, NDB Bank, Nations Trust Royal Ceramics, Seylan Bank, Telecom, The Finance and Three Acre Farms were sold.

Stock market analysts said that domestic investors made great strides over the last few weeks to push the ASPI to the historic 1000 point level. "Domestic investors were encouraged by several strategies introduced by the Government and the CSE," they said. Tax amnesty and lower interest rates coupled with international support towards the peace initiative have resulted in elevating the Bourse's performance to this height.

However, market analysts said that there are still many low-valued stocks and the investors should look into those stocks as there is much potential.

More funds such as EPF and ETF should get into the market to increase confidence in investors, Hasitha Premarathene of HNB Stock Brokers said.

However, analysts expected a 'correction' in the market but said that 'the correction would not dip indices significantly as the buying pressure is still high.

HNB Stockbrokers in a research report called 'The Lion Emerges' launched recently predicted that the ASPI would reach 1062 points in 2003 and 1275 points in 2004 based on 25% projected corporate earnings growth for 2003.