The Colombo Stock Exchange closed almost unchanged on Tuesday, the All Share Price Index adding 5.97 points, or 0.03%, to finish at 20,650.23 after an early rally faded.

The index traded above 20,740 during the morning before selling pressure returned in the afternoon, the Daily Mirror reported. The more liquid S&P SL20 went the other way, losing 2.74 points, or 0.05%, to 5,844.28.

The marginal gain follows Monday’s 168-point fall, which took the index down 0.81% on Rs. 3.16 billion of turnover.

Both newsrooms agree on every index figure

EconomyNext reported the same close citing CSE data — the ASPI up 5.97 points at 20,650.23 and the S&P SL20 down 2.74 points at 5,844.28. The two accounts match to the decimal on both indices.

That also settles a discrepancy carried over from Monday. The two outlets had differed on the S&P SL20’s close, EconomyNext putting it at 5,851.23 against 5,847.02 from Hiru News and the Daily Mirror. Tuesday’s 2.74-point decline to 5,844.28 is consistent only with the 5,847.02 baseline, leaving Monday’s EconomyNext figure as the outlier.

Turnover was reported as Rs. 1.07 billion by the Daily Mirror and Rs. 1.06 billion by EconomyNext, on 43.09 million shares. That is roughly a third of Monday’s volume by value.

“Market was slightly up. We saw about a billion in turnover which again is not fantastic, but it’s better than some of the days that we’ve had before.”

— Raynal Wickremeratne, Head of Research and Strategy, NDB Securities, speaking to EconomyNext

Where the money went

Food, Beverage and Tobacco led turnover with Rs. 243.40 million, of which Watawala Plantations accounted for Rs. 86.31 million. Crossings made up about 27% of the day’s total, led by Citizens Development Business Finance with Rs. 99.00 million and followed by Watawala, Commercial Bank and Ceylon Cold Stores.

The single most-traded counter was Asiri Surgical Hospital, at roughly Rs. 156.42 million on about 15.50 million shares — but the price fell 21.88% to Rs. 10.00, making it one of the day’s heaviest drags.

Market breadth stayed negative, with 87 gainers against 108 decliners, and foreign investors remained net sellers, with an outflow of about Rs. 29.28 million.

The strongest positive contributors were Ambeon Holdings (up 8.05% at Rs. 34.90), Ceylinco, LOLC Finance (up 2.00% at Rs. 5.10) and PGP Glass Ceylon (up 1.45% at Rs. 56.10). Hatton National Bank, Haycarb and Overseas Realty were among the main drags alongside Asiri Surgical. The Daily Mirror also lists Dialog Axiata as the largest single negative contributor and includes Hemas Holdings among the gainers, neither of which appears in the EconomyNext account.

Separately, Renuka Agri Foods listed 6,117,161 ordinary voting shares with effect from 6 October under a scrip dividend.

Not reported

Neither filing explains the 21.88% fall in Asiri Surgical Hospital on unusually heavy volume. Neither gives a figure for the foreign purchases that offset the outflow, nor the month-to-date foreign flow. The two outlets name overlapping but not identical lists of top contributors and do not reconcile them; the Daily Mirror refers to “Ceylinco Insurance” where EconomyNext says “Ceylinco Holdings”.