Sri Lankan shares advanced for the fifth consecutive month on Friday, with a rise in information technology stocks driving gains on the last session of January.
The CSE All-Share index edged up 0.14% to 17,139.09 on the day, and had climbed 7.49% for the month of January.
In its third straight week of gaining, the benchmark rose 1.31%, logging the smallest rise in the streak.
A key consumer price index, which tracks inflation in the island nation’s largest city, Colombo, fell 4% in January.
Softlogic Holdings and Colombo Fort Land & Building were the top two percentage gainers on the CSE All-Share on Friday, rising 25.71% and 18.07%, respectively.
Sri Lankan shares close largely unchanged
Trading volume on the CSE All-Share index declined to 197.7 million shares from 364.7 million in the previous session.
The equity market’s turnover dropped to 5.16 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($17.3 million) from 7.37 billion rupees in the previous session, according to exchange data.
Foreign investors were net sellers, offloading stocks worth 524.4 million rupees, while domestic investors were net buyers, purchasing shares worth 5.04 billion rupees, the data showed.
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