Sri Lanka's rupee fell to a new 14-month low on Wednesday with a state bank buying dollars to settle import bills, while shares recovered from a 4-year low hit Tuesday on foreign bargain hunting in conglomerate John Keells Holdings. The rupee fell 0.1 percent and closed at 112.80/90 per dollar, edging down from Tuesday's 112.70/80, its lowest close since October 19, 2007.
"A state bank bought dollars heavily at 112.80 level to cover some import bills," said a currency dealer. The rupee has fallen around 2.5 percent since the central bank allowed gradual depreciation on December 8, and 4.3 percent since October 30, when the central bank permitted limited depreciation of the rupee to help improve the competitiveness of the country's exports, abandoning its defence of the 108 level.
Central bank governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal on Tuesday told Reuters, that the rupee has been allowed to depreciate "a little bit" to improve export competitiveness after "tremendous pressure" built up with exporters on lack of depreciation. The rupee hit its life low of 113.45/65 per dollar on September 19, 2007.
Traders said that with the gradual rupee depreciation allowed by the central bank since December 8, the currency was likely to slide further to around 113.50 by the end of the year.
Many analysts say the central bank allowed the rupee to depreciate to meet one of the conditions set by the International Monetary Fund for possible funding. But Cabraal has said there was no such move from central bank. The IMF warned Sri Lanka of a risk of a balance of payments crisis and recommended a more flexible exchange rate regime to avoid disruptive flows of short-term speculative capital.
The Colombo All-Share index edged up 0.33 percent or 4.93 points to 1506.10, after recording its lowest close since December 29, 2004 on Tuesday. The market has fallen around 40.7 percent so far this year due to poor earnings, high borrowing costs, and global woes.
A court ruling a halt to hedging payments for five banks, sovereign rating cuts, a government delay in implementing a court order on petrol price cut and a credit card scam reported on Monday have also hurt the bourse this year, analysts said.
"Bargain hunting on John Keells Holdings helped the market to end firmer," said Shivantha Meepage, a research analyst at HNB Stockbrokers. "But still investors are waiting without trading awaiting negative sentiments to turn around." However, most of the analysts and traders said the gloomy economic outlook will keep the market falling in 2009.
Top conglomerate John Keells Holdings, which had fallen to a near 5-1/2-year closing low in the previous session, rose 4 percent to 52 rupees, calculated on a weighted average and accounted for 91.3 percent of the day's market turnover. Bourse data showed foreigners have accounted for 99.86 percent share buying in John Keells Holdings.
The market turnover was 125.3 million rupees ($1.11 million), a third of last year's daily average of 400 million rupees. It slumped to a more than seven-year low of 13.1 million rupees on December 4. The interbank lending rate or call money rate fell to 13.394 percent from Tuesday's 13.878 percent.
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