Sri Lankan stocks rose on Thursday as retail investors bought small-cap shares, despite a bomb blast in Colombo on Wednesday raising worries about the island's peace process.
The key Colombo all-share index ended up 1.44 percent, or 19.33 points, at 1,358.82.
Turnover was 253 million rupees, with foreign sales of 31.3 million rupees and foreign purchases of 31.6 million rupees.
"Retailers are trying to earn at least a small profit on penny stock trading," one brokers said.
He said that investors were not discouraged by the bomb blast, which killed five including the bomber and wounded 11, as they saw it as an attack on an individual and not an abandonment of an ongoing peace process to end a 20-year civil war.
But another broker said Thursday's gains did not recover the nearly 5 billion rupees in value lost in the hour of trade on Wednesday that followed the blast Importer Muller and Phipps Ceylon Ltd rose 25 percent to 3.75 rupees, while Capital market operator Vanik Incorporation Ltd firmed 22.2 percent to 2.75 rupees.
Ceylinco Securities and Financial Services Ltd jumped 47.2 percent to 13.25 rupees, led by foreign purchases of shares worth 2.9 million rupees.
Caltex Lubricants Ltd gained 3 percent to 103 rupees.
Distilleries Co of Sri Lanka Ltd rose 4 percent to 26.25 rupees on speculation of a bonus or dividend after the company's net profit climbed to 2.22 billion rupees for the year ended March, from 880 million in the previous year.
Comments
Comments are closed.