COLOMBO, Sept 20 (Reuters) - ** Sri Lanka's rupee closedweaker for the fifth straight session on Friday on continueddemand for dollars from banks, while equities ended the week ona negative note.
** The rupee was weaker by 0.14% at 181.10/20 to thedollar, compared with Thursday's close of 180.85/181.05. Thecurrency is down 0.47% for the week, but is up 0.82% this year.** Analysts said foreign outflows from government securitieshave shown a declining trend and the market is now waiting forforeign investors to reverse the selling trend.
** The central bank does not release foreign flow data on adaily basis, but weekly data in the past four weeks has shown anoutflow.
** Foreign investors sold government securities worth 598.9million rupees in the week ended Sept. 11 for a fourth straightweek, data showed, extending the net foreign outflow so far thisyear to 54.3 billion rupees through Sept. 11, central bank datashowed.** The benchmark stock index ended down 0.30% to5,793.89. The bourse fell 0.54% for the week.** Investors have been in a wait-and-watch mode since the mainopposition party named a hard-line former defence chief as itspresidential candidate.** So far this year, the stock index has dropped about 4.72%.** Equity market turnover was 542.97 million Sri Lankan rupees($3.00 million), less than this year's daily average of about669.8 million rupees so far. Last year's daily average was 834million.** Foreign investors bought a net 129.1 million rupees worth ofshares. But foreign investors were net sellers of 2.41 billionrupees worth of equities so far this year, according to indexdata.** For a report on global markets, click** For a report on major currencies, click($1 = 181.1000 Sri Lankan rupees)(Reporting by Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez; editing byUttaresh.V)