Stocks spark into life as war ends

At a glance

All Share Price Index (ASPI): 239.1 points

Milanka Price Index (MPI): 2466.9 points

Highest contributor-JKH: Rs.1.88 billion

Second highest contributor-NDB: Rs.1.17 billion

Commercial Bank

contributed: Rs.435.3 million

DFCC contributed: Rs.199.9 million

Dialog contributed: Rs.363.1 million

Foreign purchases: Rs.1.7 billion

Foreign sales: Rs.3.1 billion

Average daily turnover: Rs.1.6 billion

Investors were upbeat over the war victories as stocks gained sharply during the week. Indices opened with a bang on Monday with stocks rising across the board leading the market to one of the biggest daily gains in its history.

The All Share Price Index (ASPI) closed the week up by a sharp 239.1 points or 12.5 percent at 2146.7 points while the Milanka Price Index (MPI) too showed a 398.6 points or 19.3 percent jump to close at 2466.9 points.

Blue chip counters lead the market rally with the index heavyweight JKH stealing the limelight. The highest contributor towards the weekly turnover was JKH, which amounted to Rs.1.88 billion.

A noteworthy 18.3 million of JKH shares traded with its share price fluctuating between a wide range of Rs.83.00 and Rs.117.50 per share. The share price of JKH witnessed a hefty increase of 43.0 percent to close at Rs.113 per share on Friday compared to last week's closing levels.

Among the banking counters to attract interest during the week were NDB, Commercial and DFCC. NDB became the second highest contributor towards the week's turnover with Rs.1.17 billion after trading 11.4 million shares.

The counter also saw its share price appreciate by a significant 27.4 percent WoW, to close at Rs.117.50 per share on Friday.

Meanwhile Commercial Bank during the week closed 23.2 percent higher at Rs.117.00 per share with a share volume of 4.2 million and a value of Rs.435.3 million while DFCC injected Rs.199.9 million to the week's activity. WoW the DFCC share price appreciated by 27.7 percent to close at Rs.115.25 per share.

Notable quantities of Dialog were also seen trading this week with the bulk coming on Thursday and Friday. The counter contributed Rs.363.1 million towards the market turnover with 65.9 million shares changing hands for the week.

The stock traded within a price band of Rs.5.25 and Rs.6.00 per share to close the week 4.8 percent up at Rs.5.50 per share.

Heavy activity on blue-chip counters helped the market to record turnover levels above Rs.1 billion on each of the four trading days with week's total amounting to a staggering Rs.6.2 billion. Average daily turnover thus stood at Rs.1.6 billion for the week compared to Rs.215.5 million last week.

Foreign participation was significantly higher this week at 39.0 percent compared to 32.5 percent posted during the previous week.

Foreign purchases were up by 382.4 percent as against last week to Rs.1.7 billion, while foreign sales witnessed an 810.9 percent growth to Rs.3.1 billion, resulting in a net foreign outflow of Rs.1.4 billion.

The most actively traded stocks during the week were Dialog, JKH, hotel Services, NDB and Tokyo Cement (Non Voting).

Point of View

Growth barriers cleared; investors to remain upbeat

Buoyant investors chased behind stocks with the 3 decade long war coming to an end. During the week market shot up by a hefty 12.5 percent compared to last week with activity levels standing strong around Rs.1.6 billion on a daily average basis.

Peace holds the key

We expect the bullish sentiment to continue in the market place on healthy volumes, as investors are likely to remain upbeat about the post war economic prospects.

In our opinion the stocks in sectors such as leisure, construction and banking would continue to attract more investor interest, thus we advise investors to collect undervalued stocks in these key sectors.

The information contained herein has been compiled from sources that Acuity Stockbrokers (Private) Limited (ASB) believes to be true and reliable but we do not hold ourselves responsible for its completeness or accuracy. No matter published herein create any liability of any kind on ASB.

All opinions, views, findings and conclusions included in this report constitute ASB's judgment of this date and are subject to change without notice. ASB has the sole copyright for this report and the information and views contained cannot be reproduced or quoted in part or whole in any form whatsoever without the written permission from ASB.