Sri Lanka stocks hardly trade for 3 consecutive days

July 25, 2018 (LBO) - The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) closed the day down slightly on very low volume. The major indices, the ASPI and S&P SL 20, closed down .34% and .33% respectively. Turnover was very light at Rs161mn (US$1mn) on the day. This marked the third straight day of extraordinarily light trading with the combined turnover for the week averaging Rs220mn (US$1.4mn) per day. The major indices are down roughly .5% on the week. Bucking recent trends, foreigners were actually net buyers of stocks for the first 3 days of the week with cumulative net foreign buying of Rs200mn (US1.25mn). Stocks remain cheap with the total market PE of approximately 10, and a price to book of 1.25.  However there is little interest from investors as evidenced by the prevailing low levels of market turnover. For 2018 year to date, the ASPI is down close to 3% and the S&P SL20 is down nearly 8%.