Sri Lankan shares slide for a third day as industrial, financial stocks weigh

Sri Lankan shares closed lower for a third straight session on Wednesday, weighed by industrial and financial companies as factory and services output data showed marginal declines in October.

At the close of trade, the CSE All-Share index fell 2.47% to 8,087.04

Sri Lanka’s central bank on Tuesday reported manufacturing sector PMI at 38.4 index points in October, down 4.2 points from September

The services sector PMI was at 47.9 index points in October, down 3.3 points from September.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe had in the country’s federal budget on Monday laid down several medium-term targets for the government, including a more than two times increase in international trade as a percentage of GDP, annual addition of $3 billion in new exports over the next 10 years as well as attracting $3 billion in foreign investment.

On the CSE All-Share index on Wednesday, conglomerates Expolanka Holdings PLC and LOLC Holdings Plc were the top drags, falling 4.75% and 6.95%, respectively.

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Trading volume on the CSE All-Share index rose to 69.5 million shares from about 62 million in the previous session.

The equity market’s turnover was 1.63 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($4.49 million), compared with 1.58 billion rupees in the previous session, according to exchange data.

Foreign investors were net buyers in the equity market, purchasing stocks worth 141.1 million rupees, while domestic investors were net sellers, offloading shares worth 1.62 billion rupees, data showed.