Interest building on high dividend yeilding stocks

Market had a sluggish start with bargain hunting continuing across the bourse. Institutional and high net worth interest was evident in Union Ban Village while the retail favourite Environmental Resources Swarnamahal Finance and Expolanka Holdings witnessed further price depreciation during the day. generated on a few banking counters together with heavy weight John Keells and high dividend yielding counters such as Nestle, Ceylon Tobacco and Chevron ended the broader market on a positive note.

ASPI and MPI ended the week marginally 0.04% respectively.

Bank, Finance and Insurance sector was to the market turnover (due to Union Bank of Colombo Swarnamahal Finance) and the sector index The share price of Union Bank lost at Rs 16.60 while the share price of Swarnamahal Finance lost Rs.0.20 (2.30%) to close at Rs 8.50

Hotels and Travels sector was the second highest contributor the market turnover (due to Sigiriya Village Hotels sector index gained by 1.95%. The share price of Village Hotels improved by Rs.7.80 (11.61%) to 75.00.

Chevron Lubricants declared a first and final dividend of Rs 3.00 per share while Gestetner of Ceylon declared a first interim

dividend of Rs.1.50 per share.