Panic sellers sent the Colombo bourse plummeting for the second successive day with the All Share Price Index (ASPI) losing 173.1 points (12.78%) and the Milanka dropping a massive 307.8 points (12.71%) – a sharper drop than Tuesday’s 70.6 points dip on the ASPI and 141 points on the Milanka.

“The Colombo bourse saw one of its biggest one-day declines as investors panicked amidst internal political struggles,” John Keells Stock Brokers said.

Brokers said that when trading started yesterday there were no buyers in the market with only panic sellers trying to unload their holdings at whatever price.

“Bargain hunters placed `buy’ orders at very low levels and sellers matched them,” one broker said.

“The market started edging up slowly and it looked as though there’d be at least some sort of partial recovery when a wave of rumours that an emergency had been declared and there were going to be changes in the finance ministry hit. That sent the market plummeting down all over again,” he said.

He said that there were very few ‘buy’ orders in the system as the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) was only permitting two-day orders to be posted on the trading boards. That meant that the extent of ‘buy’ orders in the pipeline was low.

“Even those investors who had placed ‘buy’ orders cancelled them,” brokers said.

Some of yesterday’s spectacular declines included John Keells Holdings that dropped to a low of Rs. 95 but closed at Rs. 118 although the CSE’s volume weighted average (VWA) closing price was Rs. 123.

The National Development Bank dipped to a low of Rs. 120.25 before closing at a VWA of Rs. 139 – down Rs. 32.75 from the day before.

SLT was transacted heavily with trades over 9.2 million shares at a high of Rs. 23 and a low of Rs. 16 closing at Rs. 19.25, down 23% from the previous day (Rs. 5.25 on the VWA).

JKH saw 1.1 million shares sold, down 15.1% to Rs. 118 and Asia Capital 7.4 million shares sold, down 14.7% to Rs. 14.25 after touching a low of Rs. 10.

Slightly over 2 million shares of NTB was sold, down 25% to Rs. 28.50 and nearly 0.4 million Commercial Bank shares, down 15.73% to Rs. 150 – just Rs. 10 above the recent rights issue price.

The highly sought Distilleries too lost 22.69% to close at Rs. 23.

Turnover topped the Rs. 1 billion mark (Rs. 1.033 billion) while foreigners continued to be net buyers with purchases of Rs. 142.7 million and sales of Rs. 28 million with an inflow of Rs. 114.7 million.