Shares fall 4.5 percent, all top sectors register losses

REUTERS: Sri Lankan shares ended sharply lower yesterday, recording their worst day in over a year amid broad based losses and steep declines in energy, industrial and financial firms.

The CSE All-Share index (.CSE) was down 4.47 percent at 11,591.37 points, logging a two-month low.
While all major sectors ended in the red, conglomerates Expolanka Holdings (EXPO.CM) and LOLC Holdings (LOLC.CM) were the biggest drags to the index, slumping 7.7 percent and 8.3
percent, respectively.

Lanka IOC (LIOC.CM), a unit of Indian Oil Corp (IOC.NS) and liquefied petroleum gas supplier Laugfs Gas (LGGL.CM) were down 8.7 percent and 7.6 percent at the closing bell.
Sri Lanka is trying to arrange a payment of US $ 35 million for a shipment of 40,000 tonnes of diesel with just a few days of stocks left, the energy minister said yesterday. 

Foreign investors were net buyers in the equity market, purchasing shares worth Rs.102.3 million (US $ 506,435.64), according to stock exchange data.
The island nation’s domestic investors were net sellers, offloading shares worth Rs.4.20 billion, exchange
data showed.

The equity market turnover was Rs.4.23 billion.
The trading volume inched up to 221.8 million shares from 219.9 million shares in the previous session.
Sri Lanka’s overall rate of inflation as measured by the National Consumer Price Index was 16.8 percent year-on-year in January, compared to a 14 percent rise in December.