The Colombo Stock Exchange closed higher on Friday, with the All Share Price Index up 82.57 points, or 0.41%, at 20,316.91, EconomyNext and Hiru News both reported.
The more liquid S&P SL20 rose 26.19 points, or 0.45%, to 5,788.75.
Turnover was thin at about Rs. 1.05 billion — EconomyNext’s figure; Hiru put it at Rs. 1 billion. Diversified financials led with Rs. 233.69 million, followed by capital goods at Rs. 200.09 million.
A green day inside a red week
The gain only partly offsets the week’s losses. The ASPI finished 496 points below the previous Friday’s close, after a mixed stretch that included a 1.38% slide to 20,234 on Thursday.
Raynal Wickremeratne, Head of Research and Strategy at NDB Securities, told EconomyNext that “20,000 is also a psychological limit” for the index, suggesting buying interest could emerge near that level.
Movers
Gains came from Dialog Axiata (up 0.91% to Rs. 44.50), Hatton National Bank (up 0.93% to Rs. 379.00), Commercial Bank of Ceylon (up 0.38% to Rs. 200.00), Richard Pieris (up 4.30% to Rs. 26.70) and Laugfs Gas (up 7.35% to Rs. 40.90).
On the other side, SMB Finance fell 9.09% to Rs. 1.00, LOLC Holdings slipped 1.25% to Rs. 415.25, Haycarb lost 1.37% to Rs. 198.50, and Industrial Asphalts (Ceylon) dropped 16.67% to Rs. 0.50.
Not reported
Neither report gives net foreign inflow or outflow for the session, the number of shares traded, or how many counters advanced against those that declined.
Update: why the week was red
A weekly review by First Capital Research, carried by Hiru News on 10 October, supplies the explanation the daily filings omitted.
The broker attributed the week’s negative return to three things: escalating Middle East tensions pushing oil above US$100 a barrel, rising Treasury bill yields, and month-end margin selling pressure. Foreign investor activity stayed subdued, it said, while buying interest concentrated in banking — Sampath Bank, Hatton National Bank and Commercial Bank — and in the construction counters Access Engineering and Royal Ceramics Lanka.
On volumes, First Capital put average daily turnover for the week at Rs. 2.0 billion, up from Rs. 1.1 billion the week before. That is not in conflict with the Rs. 1.05 billion recorded on Friday: the broker’s figure is a weekly average across five sessions, and Friday was among the thinner of them.
A discrepancy in the weekly figures
First Capital’s index numbers do not reconcile with those above, and readers should treat the weekly change as unsettled.
| Measure | This article (EconomyNext / Hiru daily) | First Capital Research weekly |
|---|---|---|
| ASPI weekly change | down 496 points | down 595 points |
| ASPI level | 20,316.91 | 20,317 |
| S&P SL20 level | 5,788.75 | 5,887 |
The two accounts agree almost exactly on where the ASPI finished, but differ by about 99 points on how far it fell — implying different starting baselines. The S&P SL20 levels differ by a similar margin, and the digits in the two figures are a transposition of one another, which is consistent with a typographical error in one of them but does not establish which. This desk has not been able to resolve either discrepancy against a third source, and has not adjusted the daily figures reported above, which are internally consistent and corroborated by two newsrooms.
