The Colombo Stock Exchange reversed recent gains on Tuesday, with both benchmark indices closing lower on broad-based selling.
The All Share Price Index fell 81.43 points, or 0.38 per cent, to close at 21,542.23. The S&P Sri Lanka 20 ended at 6,054.52, the Daily Mirror and Hiru News reported.
The two outlets differ marginally on the S&P SL20’s loss — the Daily Mirror puts it at 12.02 points, or 0.20 per cent, Hiru at 12.03 — though both give the same closing level.
How the session ran
The ASPI opened around 21,650 and briefly strengthened in early trading before sustained selling pushed it towards 21,530 by midday. The market was largely range-bound through the afternoon, and a modest late recovery attempt failed to hold into the close.
Turnover was LKR 1.47 billion on roughly 68.14 million shares. Hiru rounded the figure to 1.5 billion rupees.
Breadth was the story
Market breadth was firmly negative, with 87 advancers against 134 decliners — an advance-to-decline ratio of 0.65, indicating selling extended across a wide range of counters rather than concentrating in a few large names.
Ceylinco Insurance was the heaviest drag, taking 33.66 points off the index on its own — more than 40 per cent of the ASPI’s total decline from a single counter. Lion Brewery, Carson Cumberbatch, Sampath Bank and John Keells Holdings also weighed on the index.
Hatton National Bank was the strongest positive contributor, adding 4.94 points, with support from Cargills, SMB Finance non-voting, Access Engineering and Richard Pieris.
Insurance dominated activity
The insurance sector generated about LKR 335.59 million in turnover from 14.61 million shares, most of it in ATL.N, which recorded roughly LKR 310.92 million — the day’s highest individual counter turnover. John Keells Holdings followed at LKR 87.68 million and Haycarb at about LKR 53.68 million.
Crossings accounted for approximately LKR 346.50 million, around 24 per cent of total equity turnover. The largest was in ATL.N, where 12.00 million shares changed hands at LKR 24.00 for LKR 288.00 million. John Keells Holdings recorded a crossing of 3.00 million shares at LKR 19.50, worth LKR 58.50 million.
With crossings at roughly a quarter of turnover, a substantial share of the day’s value moved in pre-arranged blocks rather than open-market trading.
Foreign buying did not offset it
Foreign investors turned net buyers, recording a net inflow of LKR 13.56 million. Against turnover of LKR 1.47 billion, the inflow was too small to counter domestic selling.
Attribution
The Daily Mirror’s account is bylined to Almas Equities Research rather than to its own newsroom. Hiru’s report is a three-line summary carrying the index levels and turnover only, and does not cover contributors, breadth or crossings.
