Bourse down sharply, trading in Touchwood suspended

sriranga

sriranga

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COLOMBO, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan stocks fell for a fourth straight session on Thursday to a 5-1/2 month closing low, with shares in large caps such as Ceylinco Insurance PLC leading the decline, amid concern over rupee volatility, traders said.

The main share index fell 1.01 percent, or 57.90 points, to close at 5,686.99, its lowest close since March 13.

It has fallen 2.5 percent in the last four sessions, mainly due to concerns over the rupee, which hit a record low last week.

The bourse was in oversold territory on Thursday, with the 14-day Relative Strength Index falling to 27.324, below its lower neutral level of 30, Thomson Reuters data showed.

Ceylinco Insurance shares fell 10.71 percent to 1052.60 rupees a share, while top conglomerate John Keells Holdings PLC fell 1.13 percent to 210.60 rupees.

The rupee traded weaker due to importer dollar demand and remained under pressure in the absence of strong dollar inflows.

The currency had hit an all-time low last week on panic buying by importers, but recovered later.

Thursday's turnover was 485.7 million rupees ($3.65 million), well below this year's daily average of about 893.6 million rupees.

Foreign investors were net sellers for the second straight session, selling 67.4 million rupees worth of shares, but they have been net buyers of 18.5 billion rupees in stocks so far this year.

($1 = 133.0000 Sri Lanka rupees)

(Reporting by Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez; Editing by Prateek Chatterjee)

(ranga.sirilal@thomsonreuters.com)(+94-11-232-5540)

(Reuters Messaging: ranga.sirilal.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)(twitter.com/rangab a)
http://www.xe.com/news/2013/09/05/3531077.htm

Redbulls · 2 Bourse down sharply, trading in Touchwood suspended Fri Sep 06, 2013 12:57 am

Redbulls

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The Colombo bourse was down sharply yesterday with the All Share Price Index losing 57.90 points (1.01%) and S&P SL20 down 32.84 points (1.02%) on a turnover of Rs.485.7 million, up from the previous day’s Rs.431.7 million, with 145 losers comfortably ahead of 64 gainers while 104 counters closed flat.

Rs.150 million of yesterday’s turnover came off block trades on Commercial Bank, JKH and Watawala Plantations with Commercial Bank seeing nearly 0.3 million shares crossed in a single parcel at Rs.114.70 in a deal worth Rs.32.8 million, JKH seeing three block trades at Rs.210 and Rs.210.30 contributing Rs.83.7 million turnover and Watawala seeing a single block trade of nearly 2.5 million shares crossed at Rs.14.

"Blue chips like JKH, Bukit Darah and Commercial Bank which in value terms were the biggest trades on the floor were all losers, dragging the indices down," a broker said." JKH closed Rs.3 down at Rs.210, Bukit was Rs.9 down at Rs.661 and ComBank (voting) 70 cents down at Rs.114.

Trading in Touchwood was suspended for three days yesterday during the course of business with 2.2 million shares already traded at the time of the suspension.

The SEC said in a directive to the Colombo Stock Exchange that having carried out a preliminary inquiry into the conduct of Touchwood PLC, it has decided to commence a fully fledged investigation into the business affairs of the company.

In view of the commencement of this investigation under the SEC Act, CSE was directed to suspend for three days trading on Touchwood with immediate effect.

Hemas Holdings and Access Engineering were two counters showing some volume that closed up – Hemas up Rs.2.20 to close at Rs.31 on over 0.2 million shares and Access up 30 cents to close at Rs.20.60 on 0.3 million shares.
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=87364