A Collective WTF at the Colombo Stock Exchange.

At 10:50 on Nov 25, the Milanka Price Index dropped 5.1% below the previous close and fell to 4,882 . With in minutes, it reverted to 4989 a drop of merely 3%. At this point the circuit breaker, which is supposed to kick in at a 5% drop, shut down the market. Stranged isn't it that there was a delay of around 10 minutes between the event and the trading halt? But what happened next is stranger still.

 

 

It rose steadily from the time it was reopened (11:30 am on the 25th) but still closed below the previous close.  It was on the 26th that all hell broke loose with both indices gaining by around 4% . As often happens on big green days at the CSE,  it was the most worthless 'pump and dump' type of stocks that had the highest gains - the very thing that the President advised the brokers to ensure doesn't happen. What's strange was how big those gains were. The same trend continued on the 28th, with the index gaining more than 2% with in the first half hour. The top gainers list at the time was not very different from the one we had seen yesterday.

 

Only a certain kind of person buys this junk. The state controlled pension funds, insurance companies and unit trusts generally keep away from them. Same goes for foreign investors. So at 10:00 on Nov 29th, either the money ran out or, all these investors traders gamblers suddenly sat up and asked themselves "WTF am I doing?"

 

(you can click on any of the charts of table to bring up a bigger version)