JKH lifts market to new high

Channa Kasturisinghe

BOURSE: Strong foreign interest in blue chip John Keells Holdings helped the Colombo Stock Exchange to create history yesterday as both indices reached all time highs and the turnover reached its highest daily figure for the year.

The All Share Price Index reached a new high of 2,619.37 points gaining 57.31 percent (2.24 percent) while the Milanka Price Index moved up by a staggering 117.8 points (3.54 percent) to close at 3,444.2 points. JKH was the centre of attraction contributing to 77 percent of the day's turnover of Rs. 2.16 billion.

A total of 8.5 billion shares of the conglomerate traded yesterday and the share price shot up from Rs.178 to Rs.199 gaining an impressive 11.48 percent.

The counter contributed Rs.1.68 billion to the turnover and over 1.5 percent came in the form of foreign purchases.

Market sources said Gold Quest which upped its stake in JKH to over 2 percent last week was once again active and now it has increased its stake up to nearly 5 percent.

Due to strong foreign interest JKH share price appreciated by 16.2 percent last week and contributed Rs.1.1 billion to the weekly turnover.

Angelo Ranasinghe of Bartleet Mallory Stock Brokers said that strong foreign participation during the last couple of months despite disturbing news from the political front helped the market to reach record levels. Yesterday the foreign purchases accounted for 73 percent of the total market turnover.

Indika Rajakaruna of Asha Phillip Securities said that the buying interest was mainly on fundamentally valuable shares such as JKH, DFCC, SLT, Dialog and Commercial Bank.

Nearly four million SLT shares traded yesterday and the share price moved up by Rs.1.50 to close at Rs.27. Investor interest in the telecommunication sector was also evident in Dialog of which over 0.6 million shares were traded with the share closing at 22.50.

At the end of yesterday's trading the total market capitalisation of the CSE stood at Rs.802.8 billion, the highest ever figure it has ever recorded.

Due to the strong performance specially during the latter half of this year the total value of the Colombo stock market has recorded a gain of Rs.218.8 billion this year so far.

The MPI which was introduced in 1999, surpassed its previous highest of 3,374 points which was recorded on November 16 last year. The MPI has recorded a growth of 993.1 points (40.5 percent) for the year so far.