Sri Lankan shares closed little changed on Wednesday, as losses in financials and consumer staples stocks offset gains in industrials.

The CSE All-Share index ended up 0.05% at 8,096.98.

Conglomerate Expolanka Holdings Plc and Ceylinco Insurance Plc were among the top boosts to the index, adding 1.5% and 4.5%, respectively.

LOLC Development Finance Plc and food and soap products maker Harischandra Mills Plc were among the top drags to the index, falling 3% and 22.2%, respectively.

Losses in industrials weigh down Sri Lankan shares

The island nation reported 1,711 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, bringing its total confirmed cases to 299,892, while deaths rose by 48 to a total of 4,195.

Data from Johns Hopkins showed the country had fully vaccinated about 8.29% of its population so far.

Sri Lanka will purchase another four million doses of Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines in the first week of August, Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka said on Wednesday.

Trading volume on the exchange fell to 75.1 million shares from 146.6 million shares in the previous session.

Sri Lankan shares close above 8,000 mark for first time in over 5 months

Foreign investors were net sellers in the equity market, offloading shares worth 129.1 million rupees ($650,377.83), exchange data showed.

The equity market's turnover was 1.81 billion rupees, the exchange data further showed.