The market held on onto positive ground after volatile trading during the early hours. Retail participation continued to dominate trading with retail active counters taking centre stage throughout trading. Premier blue-chip company John Keells Holdings saw its shares close slightly lower on thin volumes.
ASI gained 11.50 points (0.23%) to close at 5114.15, MPI gained 2.51 points (0.05%) to close at and the S&P index gained 9.39 points (0.33%) to close at 2866.13. Turnover was Rs. 444.1MN.
Top contributors to turnover were Environmental Resource Investments with Rs. 32.9Mn, Colombo Land & Development with Rs. 32.3Mn and Citrus Kalpitiya with Rs. 18.4Mn. Most active counters for the day were Colombo Land & Development, Citrus Kalpitiya and Environmental Resource Investments.
Noteworthy gainers for the day were Multi Finance up by 13.1% to close at Rs. 32.80, Lanka Ventures up by 9.7% to close at Rs. 34.00 and Citrus Kalpitiya up by 8.2% to close at Rs. 6.60. Meanwhile notable losers for the day were Citrus warrant 19 down by 6.9% to close at Rs. 6.80, Ceylon Foreign Trades down by 4.4% to close at Rs. 6.60 and Lankem Developments down by 4.1% to close at Rs. 7.00.
Cash map for today was 46.90% which actually indicates that selling pressure prevailed over buying interest. Foreign participation for today was 9.4% of total market turnover and foreigners were net buyers of Rs. 5.7Mn.
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