Sri Lankan shares closed lower on Friday, hurt by losses in IT and industrial stocks, marking a second consecutive week of declines.
* The CSE All-Share Index CSELK:ASI closed 0.58% lower at 22,701.91 points, capping a 4.3% weekly drop, its steepest drop since the week ended March 6, 2020.
* Hunter & Company PLC CSELK:HUNT.N0000 and Ceylon Hospitals PLC CSELK:CHL.N0000 were the top percentage losers in the session on the CSE All-Share index, falling 16% and 7%, respectively.
* Trading volume on the index fell to 196.4 million shares from 330.5 million in the previous session.
* The equity market's turnover fell to 5 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($16.08 million) from 5.68 billion rupees in the previous session, according to exchange data.
* Foreign investors were net sellers, offloading stocks worth 886.9 million rupees, while domestic investors were net buyers, purchasing shares worth 4.94 billion rupees, the data showed.
* Separately, Sri Lanka started to offload 208 crew members from a second Iranian vessel off its coast on Thursday, a day after 87 people were killed and several others were still missing after a U.S. submarine strike on an Iranian warship in the same region.
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($1 = 311.0000 Sri Lankan rupees)