In the run-up to the vote on the controversial United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka, country’s bourse — the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) showed marginal declines.
“In the backdrop of the important Geneva resolution the bourse ended another day of bearish performance. However in the latter part of the day, the market showed a marginal recovery of the losses in early trading,” Lanka Securities Research said in its ‘CSE Today’.
“The All Share Index (ASI) declined by 34.40 points (-0.64%) to close at 5,349.70 and liquid Milanka Price Index (MPI) decreased by 41.05 points (-0.85%) to settle at 4,780.82. Market turnover was recorded at Rs 354.1 million.”
However Bartleet Religare Securities opines that UN resolution was just one of the dilemmas and that there were ‘many issues that are currently affecting the market sentiments’.
“There are many issues that are currently affecting the market sentiment and it is hard to use a crystal ball to predict markets. Fortunately we have a science to help us forecast markets based on historic probabilities. Without the help of technical analysis to forecast price movement it would be like driving a car blindfolded and without fundamental analysis we would not know which road to take.”
“The indices and stocks have been steadily declining this week and so is volume. This means that speculators are nervous about entering the market and the probability of the ASI heading towards 5,000 and the MPI heading to 4,500 is high. Likewise there are stocks which are lingering close to dangerous support levels and we have highlighted them below.”
Foreign participation stood at 10.2% of the total market activity and at the end of the day foreign investors were the net sellers with a net foreign outflow of Rs 10.5 million.
John Keells Holdings Plc (Rs 51.1 million) was the top contributor to the daily turnover with heavy trading. In addition Commercial Bank Plc (Rs 29.9 million) and Seylan Bank nonvoting (Rs 21.9 million) made significant contributions to the daily turnover. Meanwhile PC House PLC, Environmental Resources PLC and Blue nonvoting traded actively during the day. (Ceylon Today Online)
