Sri Lankan stocks rise to 3-mth high on foreign buying

Reuters: Sri Lankan shares rose to their highest close in three months on Thursday as foreign investors picked up blue chip stocks such as conglomerate John Keells Holdings Plc.

The Colombo stock index ended 0.55 percent firmer at 6,542.90, its highest close since Nov. 10, 2017.

Shares in Carson Cumberbatch Plc rose 6.9 percent, while conglomerate John Keells Holdings Plc ended 0.5 percent higher.

Ceylon Beverage Holdings Plc jumped 14.1 percent and Nestle Lanka Plc firmed 2 percent.

“Foreign interest in blue chips like John Keells pushed the market up,” said Dimantha Mathew, head of research at First Capital Holdings.

Sri Lanka will hold a long-delayed local government election on Feb. 10 amid worries about the future of the country’s coalition government.

The market turnover was 1.3 billion rupees ($8.43 million), more than last year’s daily average of 915.3 million rupees.

Foreign investors bought a net 392.8 million rupees worth of shares on Thursday, extending the year-to-date net foreign inflow to 4.9 billion rupees worth of equities.

($1 = 154.3000 Sri Lankan rupees) 

(Reporting by Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)

Sri Lanka Treasuries yields up

ECONOMYNEXT - Sri Lanka's Treasuries yields rose across maturities at Wednesday's auction with the 12-month yield up 04 basis points to 8.94 percent, the state debt office said.

The 6-month yield also rose 4 basis points to 7.99 percent. The 3-month yield at 7.75 percent was up from 7.69 percent on 20 December, 2017 when it was last auctioned.

The debt office sold 3.5 billion rupees of 3-month bills, 5.7 billion rupees of 6-month bills, lower than the offered 10 billion rupees and 18.7 billion rupees of 12-month bills, higher than the offered 14.5 billion rupees, misleading the market.

However the total raised was 28 billion rupees.

Sri Lanka's Lanka Tiles net down 13.6-pct in Dec 2018

ECONOMYNEXT - ProSri Lanka's protected Lanka Tiles profits fell 13.6 percent in the December 2017 quarter on shrinking margins, interim financial results filed with the stock exchange showed.

The company, reported earnings of 6.57 rupees per share in the quarter. In the nine months to end December 2017 earnings were 15.64 rupees per share on total profits of 830 million rupees, down 5.4 percent from a year ago.

The group has benefitted from high import tariffs on tiles and sanitary ware which has kept construction costs artificially high, pushing up housing costs of the entire population, critics have said.

Revenues rose 10.8 percent to 1.9 billion rupees, cost of sales rose at a faster 24 percent to 1.2 billion rupees, contracting gross profits 6 percent to 739.3 million rupees.

Exports also grew 56 percent in the quarter to 82.7 million rupees, accounting for 3.8 percent of total revenue.

Distribution costs increased 10.6 percent in the quarter to 237.6 million rupees. Administrative costs fell 9.7 percent to 109.6 million rupees.

The company said it invested an undisclosed sum in a 51 percent stake in Lankatiles Private Limited, a company incorporated in Bengaluru, India which will distribute locally manufactured tiles to the subcontinent.

Earlier that year Lanka Tiles entered into outsourcing agreement with India-based Ambani Vitrified to source supplies for the Sri Lankan market.

The company gets 90 percent of the demand locally while importing the balance from India, China and Malaysia, it said in the 2016/17 annual report.