COLOMBO, Sept 19 (Reuters) - ** Sri Lanka's rupee closedweaker for the fourth straight session on Thursday on continueddemand for dollars from banks, while equities were littlechanged at close.
** The rupee was weaker by 0.1% at 180.85/181.05 to thedollar, compared with Wednesday's close of 180.70/80. Thecurrency is up 0.97% 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 0.06% up at 5,811.04.** 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 3.99%.** Equity market turnover was 463.4 million Sri Lankan rupees($2.56 million), less than this year's daily average of about670.6 million rupees so far. Last year's daily average was 834million.** Foreign investors sold a net 47.8 million rupees worth ofshares, extending the year-to-date net foreign outflow to 2.54billion rupees worth of equities, according to index data.** For a report on global markets, click** For a report on major currencies, click($1 = 180.8500 Sri Lankan rupees)(Reporting by Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez; editing byUttaresh.V)