Caution sets in at Colombo Bourse

The market continued to fall during the week and witnessed a broad downward trend.

ASPI which was past the 7000 mark last week closed at 6833.61 down 314.16 points with a drop by 4.4 percent. Milanka dipped by 4.63 percent losing 362.76 points to close at 7466.29.

Despite the fall in indices the accumulated turnover for the week was Rs 24.33 billion a rise by 10.66 percent over the previous week.

The week started with a record turnover level of Rs 12 billion as the major deals took place in HNB and Dockyard stocks.

Market capitalization was at Rs 2255.79 billion down by 4.35 percent as compared to last week.

Banking and Finance sector maintained the dominance with a share of 55.18 percent in market turnover.

The sector index closed at 17,208.24 a decline by 792.21 points from the earlier week. HNB, National Development Bank, Commercial and Seylan (non Voting).

Diversified sector was the second highest contributor with 11.78 percent to close at 2374.63.

This week's highest contributor to market turnover was HNB adding Rs 9.64 billion to the total market turnover with a share of 39.6 percent.

The share price closed at Rs 403.30, with a total of 23 million shares changing hands. Dockyard placed second highest contributor to turnover this week, representing 9.6 percent of total market turnover, amounting to Rs 2.3 billion. JKH ranked 3rd highest with Rs 1.7 billion turnover.

Nawaloka was the most traded stock this week with volume of 63.9 million shares changing hands. The stock closed at Rs 8.70.

SMB Leasing held second place with 50.8 million shares. HNB, which saw 23 million shares trading, placed third highest.

Foreign investors were net sellers during the week with net outflow of Rs 1.2 billion, however the net selling was down by 46 percent wow. Foreign buying was up by 79 percent at Rs 2.9 billion as against Rs 1.6 billion in the earlier week.

Foreign sales amounted to Rs 4 billion an up by 6.36 percent over the last week's total of Rs 3.8 billion. Top gainer for the week was Colonial MTR up by 30 percent to close at Rs 240.40. Malwatte (Non Voting) at Rs 60 and Colombo Land at Rs 25.30 were other gainers for the week at 18 percent and 17 percent respectively.

The top losers were S M B Leasing (Non Voting) down by 38 percent to close at Rs 1.3, S M B Leasing (Voting) by 36 percent with the price at Rs 1.4. The other major losers were Morisons, The Finance Company and Kandy Hotels.