Sri Lankan shares fall on profit-taking in large caps
COLOMBO May 3 Sri Lankan shares fell on Wednesday, retreating further from a near 11-month closing high hit on Friday, as investors booked profits in large caps such as Ceylon Tobacco Co Plc and conglomerate John Keells Holdings Plc.
The Colombo stock index ended down 0.67 percent at 6,563.85 with Ceylon Tobacco shedding 1.7 percent and John Keells declining 0.9 percent. Meanwhile, Selinsing Plc dropped 23.5 percent with 235 shares changing hands.
"After a long time, we saw significant profit-taking in some counters," said Dimantha Mathew, head of research, First Capital Holdings PLC. "The positive sign is that foreign interest is still there."
Analysts said the market will continue to be bullish amid some profit-taking.
Turnover was 608.04 million rupees ($4.00 million), less than this year's daily average of 898.8 million rupees.
Foreign investors net bought shares worth 60.1 million rupees, extending the year-to-date net foreign buying to 16.46 billion rupees worth of equities.
They bought a net 14 billion rupees worth of equities in the last 28 sessions with the bourse seeing inflows in 27 sessions. ($1 = 152.1000 Sri Lankan rupees) (Reporting by Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)