Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index gained 44.38 points to close at 1,537.67 points last week, as the first phase of the provincial and parliamentary polls completed on time, boosting investor confidence. 

The secondary market that opened at 1,493.29 points on Sunday added 21.05 points to the market index to close at 1,514.34 points. On Monday, the market dipped marginally by 0.6 points to close at 1,513.74 points. Of the rest of the trading days, the market gained 10.12 points, 12.26 points and 1.55 points on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday respectively. As a result, the overall market index increased by 2.97 percent over the week. 

Stockbrokers attributed the rise in Nepse index to the successful conduction of first phase polls in 32 mountain and hill districts on November 26. “The timely conduction of the parliamentary and provincial polls in the first phase has helped improve investors’ confidence towards the secondary market,” said a stockbroker, speaking under condition of anonymity. 

The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also increased 9.83 points to close at 324.26 points with a rise in sub-indices of commercial banks along with a number of other trading groups. 

With a growth in the market index, the average value of shares listed on the stock market also went up Rs50.38 billion, with market capitalisation reaching to Rs1,786.20 billion from Rs1,735.82 billion over the week. 

Of the ten trading groups, eight witnessed upward movement in their indices. Hydropower gained the most, adding 156.62 points to close at 2,078.76 points. The rise in hydropower sub-index has been attributed to the surge in demand for stocks of various hydropower companies such as Chilime Hydropower and Butwal Power Company. “Chilime is likey to issue public shares soon as subsidiaries are nearing project completion while Butwal Power has announced plans to issue further public offerings after the elections,” source said. 

Similarly, insurance gained 156.12 points to close at 8,137.21 points. It was followed by microfinance (87.29 points), hotels (73.7 points), ‘others’ (56.68 points), commercial banks (31.65 points), development banks (22.29 points) and finance companies added up 8.82 points in its index. Manufacturing and trading groups however lost 47.37 points and 6.59 points respectively.  

Of the individual companies with the largest transaction amount, Chilime Hydropower led the segment. The company witnessed shares worth Rs251.50 million being transacted last week. Butwal Power Company was in second place with Rs215.30 million transacted, followed by Standard Chartered Bank, Nepal Bank Limited and Nepal Life Insurance. 

Likewise, Nepal Bank Limited, with saw 480,895 unit shares exchanging hands and topped in terms of number of traded shares. 

Along with rise in market index, the transaction amount inclined 63.67 percent to Rs3.65 billion. 

The traded number of shares also went up to 6,818,903 units from 5,474,300 units.