Sri Lanka's stock market closed weaker on Friday as investors cashed in to free up capital for upcoming initial public offerings, amid continued forced selling. Market heavyweight and top conglomerate John Keells Holdings bought 5.6 million shares of insurance firm Union Assurance at 150 rupees a share to increase its stake to 95.6 percent from 80.7 percent, Keells said in a statement.
That boosted turnover to 2.5 billion Sri Lanka rupees ($22.4 million), just above last year's average of 2.4 billion rupees and but less than this year's daily average of 3.3 billion rupees. The island's main share index closed 1.16 percent or 84.65 points weaker at 7,184.94. It hit a record closing high of 7,811.82 on February 14.
Sri Lanka's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ordered brokers to recover 50 percent of the total debts by the end of this month and stop all credit transactions by June 30, and that has set ooff continuous forced selling Foreign investors were net sellers of 263.7 million rupees' worth of shares on Friday and have sold a net 4.5 billion rupees' worth in 2011, after selling a record net 26.4 billion in 2010.
The bourse is still Asia's best performer with an 8.3 percent gain in 2011 after bringing in the region's top return with 96 percent last year. Traded share volume was 104.1 million, against a five-day average of 56.2 million. The 30-day and 90-day average trading volumes were 79.5 million and 68.3 million respectively. Last year's daily average volume was 67.9 million.
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