Sri Lankan bourse jump 2.6 percent

Sri Lanka's stock market jumped 2.6 percent in healthy volume on Friday to the highest level in eight months, with institutional and foreign investors buying banks and diversified shares. The Colombo Stock Exchange's main index ended 2.59 percent, or 149.68 points, up at 5,926.90, its highest close since January 13. The rise helped boost market capitalisation by 57.27 billion rupees.
The index has risen 18.2 percent in the last 14 sessions on hopes that a new Securities and Exchange Commission head, Nalaka Godahewa, will produce ideas to revive the market, down 2.43 percent since the beginning of the year. Turnover on Friday was 3.23 billion rupees ($24.50 million), the highest since June 26 and more than three times the year's daily average of 908.6 million rupees.