Colombo bourse slides further after PM’s comment on stock market mafia

    Colombo stocks lost the momentum on Wednesday, after its slight recovery from the downtrend for 11 consecutive days during mid day trade on the back of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe on Tuesday slamming corrupt sections of Sri Lanka’s private sector to the extent of naming businessmen like Dilith Jayaweera and Nimal Perera, according to analysts. The benchmark index, All Share ended today shedding 0.19 per cent to close at 7043.90. The Blue chip Index also lost 0.38 per cent to close at 4013.82. The day’s turnover was at a low Rs 700.2 million. Commercial Bank which witnessed price losses of -2.23 per cent to close at Rs.175 along with other price losses in counters such as CTC, Access Engineers, Ceylinco, etc, mainly triggered a decline in the core index. Analysts said the Diversified Holdings Sector managed to record the highest turnover of some Rs. 263 million for the day, followed by the Banking, Finance and Insurance Sector and Power and Energy Sector with daily turnovers of Rs 253.9 million and Rs.79.3 million respectively.