ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka stocks closed at a new all-time crossing 11,024.89 on Wednesday (17), with export counters pushing the market up, brokers said.
The Colombo benchmark All Share Price Index (ASPI) closed 0.15 percent or 16.56 points higher at 11,024.89, its fresh all-time closing high.
The S&P SL20 index of more liquid stocks, however, gained 1.27 percent or 45.81 points to close at 3,652.66.
Brokers said, with continuous rupee depreciation, the investors were interested in more exporting business to obtain foreign currency.
On Friday, the Finance Minister proposed a 25 percent retrospective tax surcharge on firms that earned over 2 billion rupees in 2020/21 and 3 percent increase on VAT for banks, insurance, and financing firms.
The Finance minister said 62 individuals and companies under this category are expecting to generate 100 billion rupees through this tax.
A value-added tax (VAT) was increased to 18 percent from the current 15 percent on banks and financial service providers undersupply of financial services by specified institutions with effect from Jan.1, 2022, targeting 14 billion rupees from the proposal.
The day’s turnover was 10.2 billion rupees, way above this year’s average daily turnover of over 4 billion rupees.
Although the market saw a plunge in the mid-day trading session on Wednesday where investors sold fundamentally weak shares, it recovered immediately.
Foreign investors, however, sold a net of 768.6 million rupees’ worth of shares, extending the net foreign inflow to 47 billion rupees so far this year.
The gain was led by Expolanka Holdings, Royal Ceramic Lanka and Vallible One.
Expolanka Holdings gained 5.47 percent to close at 228.00 rupees.
Royal Ceramic Lanka gained 7.57 percent to close at 54.00 rupees and Vallibel One closed 3.96 percent up at 63.00 rupees.
The bourse saw 85 stocks gaining against 112 falling on Wednesday (Colombo/Nov 17/2021)