Sri Lankan shares fell for a fourth straight session on Thursday and posted their lowest close in five months, dragged by conglomerate John Keells Holdings Plc on foreign investor selling. Foreign investors sold shares of John Keells following reports that the MSCI Frontier Markets 100 Index, which captures large- and mid-cap representation across 29 frontier markets, will remove the stock from its index. MSCI has yet to respond to a Reuters query if it has decided to remove John Keells from the index, but two analysts said the stock will be removed.
Foreign investors sold net 475.9 million rupees worth of equities on Thursday, extending the year-to-date net foreign outflow to 1.4 billion rupees worth of shares. The Colombo stock index ended 0.35 percent weaker at 6,398.44. For the month, it declined 1.9 percent. Turnover was 2.3 billion rupees ($14.54 million), more than twice of this year's daily average of 998 million rupees.
Shares of John Keells fell 2.3 percent, Melstacrop Plc ended 3.5 percent weaker, Richard Pieris & Company Plc lost 4.7 percent and Lion Brewery (Ceylon) Plc slipped 2.5 percent.
Comments
Comments are closed.