Quote for the day

"The beautiful thing about the markets, they don’t like you, they don’t dislike you, they just don’t care. They are there everyday. You want to play, you can play. You don’t want to play, don’t play."- Larry Hite

LSL Market Review 24th Apr 2013

Indices gained considerable ground helped by gains on Ceylon Tobacco Company and Chevron Lubricants. Retail favorite Colombo Land & Development rallied with solid activity. A major shareholder of Panasian Power reduced their stake whilst Hemas power was the buyer. The latter will be expanding its portfolio of power generating sites in effect. Investors speculated on Ceylon Tobacco Company announcing its interim dividend anytime soon. High dividend yielding counters are expected to see price appreciations in the short-term.

ASI gained 50.21 points (0.85%) to close at 5,933.73 and the S&P SL20 index 13.66 gained (0.41%) points to close at 3,358.51. Turnover was Rs. 975.3Mn.

Top contributors to turnover were Panasian Power with Rs. 304.8Mn, John Keells Holdings with Rs. 114.3Mn and Commercial bank with Rs. 71.9Mn. Most active counters for the day were Colombo Land & Development, Touchwood Investments and Agstar Fertilizer.

Notable gainers for the day were Industrial Asphalts up by 18.4% to close at Rs. 249.90, Environmental Resource Investments - warrants up by 13.6% to close at Rs. 2.50 and Amana Takaful up by 13.3% to close at Rs. 1.70. Notable losers for the day were Tangerine Hotels down by 14.9% to close at Rs. 68.10, E.B. Creasy down by 4.9% to close at Rs. 951.00 and Lankem Ceylon down by 4.9% to close at Rs. 154.00.

Cash map for today was 70.22%. Foreign participation was 27.2% of total market turnover whilst net foreign selling was Rs. 161.5Mn.

2013 Country Stock Market Performance

Below is a look at the year-to-date performance for the major stock market indices of 77 countries around the world. Through today, the average country on the list is up 4.09% in 2013, and 49 of the 77 countries (63.6%) are in the green for the year.

Japan now ranks first overall with a gain of 30.53%, but keep in mind that its currency has depreciated significantly this year. In dollar terms, Japan's stock market is up 14.04% YTD. This would still rank it 11th on the list, but it cuts the gains in half. In the G7, the US ranks second behind Japan, followed by the UK. After Japan, the US and the UK, the four other G7 countries are not doing very well. France is up just 0.30% on the year, while Italy, Germany and Canada are all down.

All four of the big BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) emerging markets are down on the year as well. China is doing the best of the BRICs with a YTD decline of 1.19%. India is down 1.32%, while Brazil and Russia are now down double digit percentages. Brazil and Russia are both having very rough 2013s through mid-April.
Source: http://www.bespokeinvest.com