Indices up marginally on thin volumes

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At a glance

* Largest contributor to the market: Lanka Cement - Rs.21.4 million

* Kuruwita Textile’s share prices rose by 2.3% WoW

*Third highest contributor: JKH - Rs.19.2 million

* Week’s highest traded stock: Dialog - 4.0 million shares

* Contribution to weekly turnover: Rs.18.7 million

* Foreign purchases: Rs.41.9 million

* Foreign sales: Rs.33.2 million

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Despite closing the last two days of the week on negative territory, market managed to improve its performances from last week’s closing levels.

Both indices were up marginally Week on Week (WoW), however the activity levels were hardly noticeable during the four trading day weeks. The ASPI closed the week up by 0.3% at 1632.9 points, while the MPI closed the week 1.4% higher at 1697.9 points on Friday.

Speculative stock, Lanka Cement with a turnover of Rs.21.4 million became the largest contributor to the market activity after trading 2.1 million of its shares for the week. Counter closed 7.7% up compared to last week’s closing levels at Rs.10.50 per share. During the week the Lanka Cement share traded at a highest of Rs.11.00 and a lowest of Rs.9.75 per share.

Kuruwita Textiles saw its share price rise by 2.3% WoW to close the week at Rs.22.75 per share, after witnessing few blocks of the company changing hands on Friday. Kuruwita Textile saw 0.8 million of its shares trading for the week, contributing Rs.19.4 million towards market turnover. The share price of Kuruwita was seen fluctuating between a price band of Rs.25.00 and Rs.21.00 per share during the 4 days of trading.

Market heavy weight JKH managed to retain investor interest as counter saw 0.3 million of its shares changing hands for the week, becoming the week’s 3rd highest contributed stock. The counter closed the week at Rs.57.00 per share, showing no change from last week’s closing level. JKH contributed Rs.19.2 million towards weekly turnover with bulk of its trading taking place on Monday.

Dialog during the week witnessed its share price appreciating by 4.4% and became the week’s highest traded stock with a total volume of 4.0 million shares. The Dialog share closed the week at Rs.4.80 per share, contributing Rs.18.7 million towards weekly turnover.

Poor corporate earnings continued to dampen activity levels as the week saw a substantial decline in total market turnover, which amounted to Rs.214.4 million. Turnover on each of the first three trading days hardly surpassed Rs.50 million level resulting in an average daily turnover of Rs.53.6 million for the week.

Both foreign purchases and sales declined for the week with foreign purchases amounting to Rs.41.9 million while foreign sales for the week stood at Rs.33.2 million resulting in a net foreign inflow of Rs.8.7 million.

Foreign participation for the week was at a low of 17.5% compared to 44.9% recorded last week on the back of foreign buying seen within Carsons Group companies.

Dialog, Seylan Merchant (Non Voting), Lanka Cement and Kuruwita Textiles were among the highest traded stocks for the week.

Point of View

Sentiment unlikely to get a boost

In line with what we expected, the market remained extremely dull as investors adopted a wait and see approach. Overall during the week market gained marginally by 0.3% compared to last week’s closing levels.

We do not expect major change in the sentiment over the coming week, thus the indices are likely to remain volatile with low volumes. However we feel the developments in the war front as well as the news on the economy would be crucial in the coming weeks in determining the market direction.

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