By Hiran H.Senewiratne
CSE trading resumed yesterday on a bullish note expecting Treasury Bill rates and Central Bank policy rates to decline sharply or to arrive at a stable level. Further, the banking sector was the top contributor to the turnover, while other sectors too began to perform well in the market, market analysts said.
The All- Share Price Index gained 99.49 points to close at 10,176.13 points, while the S and P SL20 index gained 35.97 points to close at 3009.09 points. It is the highest ASPI close since 2022 March, analysts said.
Turnover stood at Rs 4.95 billion with seven crossings. NDB 5.9 million shares crossed to the tune of Rs 355 million and its shares traded at Rs 60, JKH 2.2 million shares crossed for Rs 352 million, its shares traded at Rs 60, Expolanka Holdings two million shares crossed for Rs 282 million; its shares traded at Rs. 141, Commercial Bank 1.9 million shares crossed for Rs 154.4 million and its shares traded at Rs 81, Ceylon Cold Stores two million shares crossed for Rs 96 million; its shares traded at Rs 48, CIC 744,000 shares crossed to the tune of Rs 48.3 million; its shares fetched Rs 65 and Hayleys 400,000 shares crossed for Rs 34.8 million; its shares traded at Rs 87.
In the retail market top seven companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were; Commercial Bank Rs 387 million (4.7 million shares traded), Hayleys Rs 287 million (3.3 million shares traded), Browns Investments Rs 250 million (38.9 million shares traded), Capital Alliance Rs 221 million (5.3 million shares traded), Expolanka Holdings Rs 192 million (1.3 million shares traded), JKH Rs 149 million (934,000 shares traded), and Sampath Bank Rs 137 million (2.1 million shares traded). During the day 173 million share volumes changed hands in more than 30,000 transactions.
Sri Lanka has made the offer to restructure domestically as part of efforts to meet International Monetary Fund targets to make government debt sustainable after sovereign default.
Sri Lanka is offering to swap debt in provident funds for new instruments with a longer duration in line with an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) of the IMF. Dollar debt of domestic banks would also be restructured.
Yesterday the Central Bank’s US dollar buying rate was Rs 298.89 and selling rate Rs 313.66.