Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) gained 2.5 points last week due to low selling pressure following the end of Tihar, one of the major festivals of Hindus.

Last week, transaction on the stock market took place only on Thursday—the last trading day of the week—because of public holidays on other trading days. On Thursday, the Nepse index opened at 1,759.71 points and closed at 1,762.21 points.

Stockbroker Anjan Raj Poudel said the stock market registered moderate gain as investors refrained from dumping shares. “After four long days of holidays, many investors did not show interest in selling stocks they were holding. As a result, there was low selling pressure, which helped the index to move upward,” said Poudel.

Along with the Nepse index, the sensitive index, which measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies, also inched 0.52 point upwards to 381.67 points.

The gain made by Nepse index added Rs4.77 billion to the value of shares listed on the stock market, with the market capitalisation growing to Rs1,958.37 billion.

Last week, development banks were the biggest gainers. The sub-index gained 26.11 points to end at 1,857.18 points. The commercial bank sub-index also went up by 3.49 points to close at 1,659.98 points, while the finance company sub-index gained 0.73 point.

Insurance sub-index, however, witnessed a fall of 31.21 points, ending the week as the biggest loser. The group’s index closed at 9,135.69 points.

“Until several weeks ago, demand for stocks of insurance companies was high, as investors expected the insurance sector regulator to raise the minimum regulatory paid-up capital requirement of insurers,” said Poudel.

Call for hike in paid-up capital would have prompted insurance companies to float more bonus and rights shares to raise the capital stock, providing opportunity to investors to grab shares free of cost or at their face value of Rs100.

“But since the regulator has not made any move in this regard so far, many investors are not interested in holding on to those shares and have started dumping them,” said Poudel. “This exerted pressure on prices of insurance stocks.” Other losers of last week were ‘others’ sub-index, which shed 9.83 points, hotel sub-index, which lost 7.97 points, and hydropower sub-index, which fell by 6.13 points.

Last week, shares of 121 companies were traded on the secondary market. In the single-day transaction on Thursday, the stock market saw share transactions worth Rs538.5 million.

Among listed companies, Civil Bank saw largest transaction of Rs110.46 million, followed by Chhimek Laghubitta Bikas Bank, which recorded transaction of Rs55.54 million. “Civil Bank witnessed highest transaction amount, as its shares were traded after a long time,” Poudel said.

Earlier, Nepse had halted transaction of shares of Civil Bank after it initiated merger process with International Leasing and Finance Company. “Investors rushed to purchase shares of Civil Bank following the completion of the merger process, as its share price is lower than those of other commercial banks,” Poudel added.

Lumbini General Insurance, Muktinath Bikas Bank and Everest Bank were other companies, whose shares were highly traded last week.

• Civil Bank                                                        110.46
• Chhimek Laghubitta Bikas Bank                 55.54
• Lumbini General Insurance                         38.04
• Muktinath Bikas Bank                                    34.43
• Everest Bank                                                   34.27