Sri Lankan shares snap five months of gains

Sri Lankan shares closed higher on Friday, aided by broad-based gains across most sectors, but logged monthly losses after posting gains for five months straight.

The CSE All-Share index settled 0.29% higher at 16,478.67 points, but dropped 3.7% in the month of February.

It posted 2.3% losses for the week, marking its third weekly loss in the month.

A key consumer price index, which tracks inflation in the island nation’s largest city, Colombo, fell 4.2% on year, in February.

Nation Lanka Finance and Tess Agro were the top percentage gainers on the index, up 50% and 10%, respectively, on the day.

Sri Lanka shares end higher as real estate, healthcare gain

Trading volume on the index fell to 58.9 million shares from 67.4 million shares in the previous session.

The equity market’s turnover grew to 1.72 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($5.83 million) from 1.67 billion rupees in the previous session, according to exchange data.

Foreign investors were net buyers, purchasing stocks worth 334.5 million rupees, while domestic investors were net sellers, offloading shares worth 1.4 billion rupees, the data showed.