The Colombo Stock Exchange surrendered a strong morning advance on Wednesday, with the All Share Price Index closing down 4.89 points at 20,812.93 — a fall of 0.02% — after having been up more than 117 points before lunch.

The reversal is the day’s story. At mid-morning the ASPI was up 117.10 points, or 0.56%, at 20,934.92, with EconomyNext reporting the market had “opened in green” and trended up steadily on the back of financial services, healthcare and materials counters. Turnover at that stage stood at Rs. 1.17 billion.

By the close the index had given back the entire gain and a little more, finishing 122 points below its mid-morning level.

Where the index ended

The more liquid S&P SL20 held on to its gain, closing up 16.10 points, or 0.27%, at 5,912.50 — so the large-cap index and the broad index finished the session pointing in opposite directions.

Full-day turnover was Rs. 1.55 billion, with capital goods leading at Rs. 557.27 million.

Lion Brewery (Ceylon) was the strongest positive contributor, up 3.25% at Rs. 1,858.75, alongside LOLC Finance (up 3.92% at Rs. 5.30), Hemas Holdings (up 1.31% at Rs. 31.00) and SMB Finance (up 10.00% at Rs. 1.10).

Pulling the other way were Dialog Axiata (down 1.31% at Rs. 45.20), Commercial Bank of Ceylon (down 0.37% at Rs. 202.50), Carson Cumberbatch (down 1.37% at Rs. 720.00) and Bukit Darah (down 2.17% at Rs. 846.00).

The session checks out against Tuesday

Both of Wednesday’s readings imply the same starting point. The mid-morning print (20,934.92 less 117.10) and the closing print (20,812.93 plus 4.89) each resolve to a previous close of 20,817.82 — exactly the level at which the ASPI ended Tuesday, when the index shed 125.97 points and market breadth collapsed to 31 gainers against 163 decliners.

On that arithmetic, Wednesday’s flat close leaves the index still slightly below where it stood on Monday, and turnover up by roughly half on Tuesday’s Rs. 1.01 billion.

One caveat on the record. Daily Mirror’s business desk published a market wrap on Wednesday reporting turnover “crossing Rs. 595mn” and Commercial Bank closing flat at Rs. 204.00. That filing went up at 12:13 p.m. Colombo time — more than two hours before the CSE’s 2:30 p.m. close — and its turnover figure matches Monday’s session, which was the lowest daily total recorded so far this year. It is not an account of Wednesday’s trading, and is not cited here.

Update: two more newsrooms confirm the reversal

Daily Mirror subsequently filed a genuine post-close wrap, and Hiru News also reported the session. Both confirm the ASPI down 4.89 points, or 0.02%, at 20,812.93, and Hiru carried the fall in its headline. Daily Mirror’s post-close filing supersedes the 12:13 p.m. wrap noted above; both remain on its site.

Daily Mirror named the trigger for the intraday rally that EconomyNext did not: sentiment improved after the Central Bank’s decision to hold the Overnight Policy Rate at 8.75%, before buying momentum faded towards the close.

Its filing adds several figures absent from the EconomyNext accounts. 58.84 million shares changed hands on the Rs. 1.55 billion turnover. Access Engineering recorded the highest single-counter turnover at Rs. 272.28 million. Crossings made up about 14% of total turnover, led by Access Engineering at roughly Rs. 119.80 million and Sampath Bank at Rs. 63.00 million, with further blocks in Sunshine Holdings and Softlogic Life. Foreign investors returned to net selling, with an outflow of about Rs. 67.41 million.

Most notably, market breadth improved even as the index fell: 117 gainers against 87 decliners, an advance-decline ratio of 1.34. That is a sharp recovery from Tuesday’s 31 against 163, and it means Wednesday’s flat headline sits on top of a broadly rising market — the decline was concentrated in a few heavyweight counters, chiefly Dialog Axiata and Commercial Bank.

An unresolved split on the S&P SL20

The two outlets disagree on the S&P SL20, and in opposite directions. EconomyNext reports the large-cap index up 16.10 points, or 0.27%, at 5,912.50; Daily Mirror reports it down 2.24 points, or 0.04%, at 5,894.16 — a gap of 18.34 points.

The arithmetic locates the fault precisely. EconomyNext’s figures imply a previous close of 5,896.40 (5,912.50 less 16.10); Daily Mirror’s imply 5,896.40 (5,894.16 plus 2.24). Both resolve to exactly the same Tuesday close, so this is not two different sessions or two different data feeds — one of the two closing prints is simply wrong. We cannot say which from the material available, and have left the original EconomyNext figure in the body above rather than silently switching it. The broad-index figures, on which all three outlets agree, are unaffected.