Investing.com – Sri Lanka equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Footwear & Textile, Palm Oil and Banking, Financials & Insurance sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Colombo, the CSE All-Share gained 0.28%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the CSE All-Share were Colombo Fort Investments PLC (CM:CFI), which rose 21.87% or 15.20 points to trade at 84.70 at the close. Ceylinco Insurance PLC (CM:CINS) added 20.07% or 250.70 points to end at 1499.90 and Lanka Ashok Leyland PLC (CM:ASHO) was up 18.27% or 192.90 points to 1249.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Multi Finance PLC (CM:MULT), which lost 8.57% or 1.20 points to trade at 12.80 in late trade. Beruwala Resorts PLC (CM:BERU) declined 8.33% or 0.100 points to end at 1.100 and Blue Diamonds Jewellery Worldwide PLC (CM:BLUE) shed 6.25% or 0.10 points to 1.50.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 98 to 59 and 45 ended unchanged on the Colombo Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Crude oil for February delivery was down 0.18% or 0.10 to $53.96 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in March rose 0.21% or 0.12 to hit $57.08 a barrel, while the February Gold contract rose 0.56% or 6.35 to trade at $1147.25 a troy ounce.
GBP/LKR was up 0.21% to 183.380, while USD/LKR fell 0.13% to 149.530.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.46% at 102.76.