Activities drop for New Year holidays

The indices fell, as investor momentum dampened ahead of the Sinhala and Hindu New Year.

The indices showed some volatility during the 4-day trading week with the indices picking up towards the latter part of the week whilst remaining thin in terms of activity levels except for the strategic sale on Wednesday. Overall the ASPI (All Share Price Index) fell by 10.3 points or 0.39% to stand at 2614.6 points while the more liquid MPI (Milanka Price Index) shed 24.9 points or 0.76 % to close at 3275.7 points at week's close.

Leading turnover for the week came from Hotel Services (Ceylon) Ltd due to a 9.4 million-share deal on Wednesday. It's former owner Mr. U.K Sharma who held 97.3% of the company sold the 53.5% strategic stake to Green Care International Ltd at a price of Rs.138/= a share, contributing to the turnover by approximately Rs.1.3 billion.

Meanwhile the total contribution by the counter during the week amounted to Rs.1.36 billion and the total number of shares traded amounted to 9.8 million. Although the counter emerged as the biggest contributor for the week the share price declined 6.7% to close at Rs.140 per share on Friday.

Interest on the Telecom counter SLT continued with the counter managing to generate a contribution of Rs.511.4 million by trading a total of closer to 10.4 million shares for the week.

The continued interest on the counter was particularly reflected during the early part of the week where the stock emerged as the largest contributor during the first two trading days of the week. SLT, before closing at Rs.48.75 per share traded between a price range of Rs.48.00 & Rs.49.50 per share.

Contributing Rs.35.4 million to the total market turnover was the blue chip, Distilleries. Distilleries, which traded a volume of 0.4 million shares closed, unchanged at Rs.105 per share for the week. During the week the share touched a highest price of Rs.105 and a lowest of Rs.104.25 per share.

The week also saw 1.5 million of Dialog shares getting traded within a price range of Rs.16.25 & Rs.16.75 per share. The counter was the 4th highest contributor towards the weekly turnover, contributing Rs.25.3 million. The share slipped 1.49% WoW to close Rs.0.25 lower at Rs.16.50.

Weekly turnover this week stood at Rs.2.24 billion, helped largely by the Hotel Services trade on Wednesday. Comparable to last week (excluding the SLT deal) the activity levels witnessed a 29% drop.

And the average daily turnover stood at Rs.560.55 million, down by 11.4% for the week. Leaving out the Rs.1.3 billion trade which took place this Wednesday, the daily activity levels remained rather low largely due to the upcoming holidays. Foreign investors were net buyers this week amounting to Rs.402.7 million with a foreign participation level of 71.5% of total activity.

Foreign purchases for the week amounted to Rs.1.8 billion while foreign sales totaled to Rs.1.4 billion for the week. The highly traded stocks during the week were SLT, hotel Services, Vallibel and Dialog.

Market activity levels dried out towards the latter part of the week as market was heading for Sinhala and Tamil New Year holidays. Meanwhile profit taking continued in the market place causing indices to slide marginally during the 4-day week. Overall the All Share Price Index (ASPI) lost 10.4 points while liquid Milanka Price Index (MPI) declined by 25 points compared to last week.

In the week ahead we do not expect a major change in the market behavior, as it will be going in for another holiday-shortened week. The activity levels are likely to be low with little volatility expected in indices. However we expect bargain-hunting opportunities to exist thus we advice investors to closely monitor the market in order to capitalize on these.

"This information has been compiled from sources that we believe to be reliable but we do not hold ourselves responsible for its completeness or accuracy.