Courtesy - The Island
The Colombo Stock Exchange has fallen to new lows on liquidity constraints and would require brokers and government to act quickly to counter this problem, brokers said.
"The lack of credit in the system is causing panic selling and we will continue to see this throughout next week. The stock exchange halted trading on Friday as the index for a second crossed the 5% mark to the downside due to an error trade. This shows the lack of liquidity in certain high cap stocks and could pose a problem going forward. It is time for the brokers and government to come up with a solution for the problem. Historically solutions from governments come too late, would we see the government finally act ahead of the curve?" Bartleet Religare Securities (BRS) said last Friday.
"Markets (Human Emotions) have a funny way of repeating itself throughout history. The cycles that run over and over are usually forgotten and then year’s later markets seem stunned when those very patterns repeat themselves.
"The ASI is currently trading in a bear market. Volatility and volume have increased immensely to the downside this week as key technical levels were broken," BRS said.
"The Market broke the new range it formed between 6,000 and 5,800 on Friday and then managed to recover back up to support closing at 5,505. While the MPI closed above the psychological support level of 5,000. Markets don’t fall down in a straight line and we could see a minor rally going into early next week while the major trend will remain bearish. Historically during this phase, illiquid speculative favourites are likely to lead the way as we have seen throughout this bear market bull runs," it said.