The Colombo stock market went through the roof last week posting one of the biggest daily gains in its history following the news that the war had ended, brokers said.

The All Share Price Index closed the week on Friday up a sharp 239.1 points or 12.5% at 2146.7 while the Milanka jumped 19.3% (398.6 points) to close at 2466.9, Acuity Stockbrokers said yesterday in a market report.

Blue chips led the market rally with the index heavy weight JKH stealing the limelight by contributing Rs.1.88 billion to the week’s turnover, Acuity said.

"A noteworthy 18.3 million of JKH shares traded with its share price fluctuating between a wide range of Rs.83 and Rs.117.50 per share," the Acuity report said noting that the JKH share price witnessed a ``hefty increase’’ of 43% to close at Rs.113 on Friday against the previous week’s closing levels.

Banking counters too attracted interest last week with the NDB, Commercial Bank and DFCC being in the limelight with NDB becoming the second highest contributor to the week’s turnover posting trades worth Rs.1.17 billion on 11.4 million shares traded.

NDB saw its share price appreciating a significant 27.4% week-on-week to close at Rs.117.50 per share on Friday.

Commercial Bank too did very well with its share moving up 23.2% to Rs.117 per share on a trading volume of 4.2 million shares contributing Rs.435.3 million to last week’s turnover.

DFCC also saw sharp price gains appreciating 27.7% week-on-week to close at Rs.115.25 per share injecting Rs.199.9 million to the week’s turnover, Acuity said.

Other shares that saw volume were Dialog with heavy trades on Thursday and Friday contributing Rs.363.1 million to the weekly turnover on 65.9 million shares traded on a price range of Rs.5.25 to Rs.6 per share. Dialog closed the week up 4.8% at Rs.5.50 per share.

Brokers said that vigorous trading on blue chip counters had helped the market to record turnover levels of over Rs.1 billion on each of the four trading days last week with the total trade volume worth what Acuity called "a staggering Rs.6.2 billion.’’

Average daily turnover last week at Rs.1.6 billion compared to the previous week’s Rs.215.5 million with brokers saying that with share prices moving sharply, a lot of day trading was evident with stock market punters realizing profit without having to pay brokerage twice over.

Foreign participation too was significantly higher last week rising to 39% against the previous week’s 32.5%. However, foreign sales at Rs.3.1 billion outpaced purchases of Rs.1.7 billion resulting in a net foreign outflow of Rs.1.4 billion.