Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index shed 39.09 points to close at 1,658.08 points last week, as many investors refrained from buying shares since most of the listed companies have already declared dividends and rights shares for this year.

The secondary market opened for trading at 1,697.17 points on Sunday and closed at 1,700 points, up 2.83 points. On Monday, the market gained 6.28 points to close at 1,706.28 points. Since then the market started moving downhill.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the index shed 4.37 points and 3.01 points, respectively. On Thursday, the last trading day of the week, the index lost 40.82 points. These losses caused Nepse index to slip 2.3 percent over the week.

“As most of the listed companies have already declared returns for their shareholders, investors are less willing to invest in the stock market,” said Sharada Nepal, managing director of Sagarmatha Securities. “Also, rumours that banks will be raising lending rates soon affected investor sentiment last week.”

Along with the Nepse index, the sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also shed 8.43 points over the week to close at 358.59 points. The fall in Nepse index erased Rs43.44 billion off the stock market, with market capitalisation dipping to Rs1,842.64 billion.

Of nine trading groups, indices of almost all groups ended up in red last week. Hydropower sub-index witnessed a free fall of 123.46 points over the week and closed at 2,109.96 points.

Investors, according to Nepal, are not showing very keen interest to invest in hydro stocks these days, as most of the hydropower companies failed to declare good returns to their investors this year.

The insurance sector was the second biggest loser last week with the sub-index seeing a loss of 120.3 points over the week. The insurance sub-index closed at 8,641.19 points last week.

The development bank sub-index, on the other hand, shed 57.65 points, hotels sub-index slipped 49.84 points and commercial bank sub-index lost 41.82 points over the week. Likewise, sub-indices of ‘others’ and finance companies also shed 1.45 points and 1.41 points, respectively.

Manufacturing group, however, gained 16.54 points over the week, while the trading sub-index remained stable at 202.79 points throughout the trading days.

Last week, Everest Bank topped the list in terms of stock transaction, with the class ‘A’ financial institution witnessing share trading worth Rs1.40 billion. The bank’s shares were highly traded as it had declared lucrative dividend last week, according to Nepal.

Everest Bank has declared 70 percent bonus shares and 33 percent right shares to its shareholders.

With transaction of shares worth Rs471.08 million, National Life Insurance took the second position in terms of share transaction last week, followed by Shikhar Insurance, Siddhartha Bank and Bank of Kathmandu Lumbini.

Right Shares/Bonus Shares

Company    Type    Units

Rapti Bheri Bikas Bank    Bonus    187,520.10

Mahakali Bikas Bank    Bonus    216,240

Green Development Bank    General     1,000,000