Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index inched up 4.23 points to close at 1,493.29 points last week, as investors looked to purchase shares at relatively low prices due to the significant drop in the index over the past few weeks.

The secondary market that opened at 1,489.06 points on Sunday plunged 13.34 points to close at 1,475.72 points. On Monday too, the market shed 6.56 points to close at 1,469.16 points. However, the market followed an upward trend during the remaining trading days, gaining 3.08 points, 8.02 points and 13.03 points on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday respectively. As a result, the overall market index increased marginally by 0.28 percent over the week.

Stockbrokers considered the small rise in Nepse index as market correction. “There were no specific factors that caused investors’ confidence to pick up,” said a stockbroker under condition of anonymity.

The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also increased 1.31 points to close at 314.43 points with a rise in index of commercial banks along with a number of other trading groups.

With a growth in the market index, the average value of the shares listed in stock market also went up Rs7.14 billion with market capitalisation reaching Rs1,735.82 billion from Rs1,728.68 billion over the week.

Of the ten trading groups, five witnessed upward movement in their indices. Hydropower gained the largest of 48.97 points to close at 1,922.14 points. The rise in hydropower sub-index has been attributed to the surge in demand for the stocks of a number of hydropower companies including Butwal Power Company. A source told the Post that Butwal Power had announced plans to issue further public offerings after elections, resulting in investors flocking to purchase stocks of the company.

Similarly, commercial banks gained 9.48 points to close at 1,280.18 points. It was followed by manufacturing (7.45 points),

development banks (2.82 points) and trading added up 0.68 points in its index.

Among the five losers, insurance witnessed the largest drop of 66.6 points in its index. Hotels index went down 38.86 points followed by ‘others’ (6.36 points), finance companies (2.21 points) and microfinance (1.35 points). 

Of the individual companies with the largest transaction amount, promoters’ shares of Sana Kisan Bikas Bank led the segment. The bank’s promoters’ shares worth Rs219.92 million were transacted last week. Sana Kisan Bikas Bank announced 25 percent bonus shares to its shareholders. “Investors rushed to purchase shares of the bank before Thursday to be eligible for the bonus shares,” said the source.

Likewise, Civil Bank, with a transaction of 272,000 unit shares, topped in terms of number of transaction.

Last week, the shares of 185 listed companies were traded. Despite a rise in market index, the transaction amount plunged 23.38 percent to Rs2.23 billion. The number of traded shares also went down to 5,474,300 units from 6,827,680 units.