Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) shed 19.92 points to close at 1,198.54 points last week, as investors adopted a wait and watch stance ahead of the money policy set to be released by the Nepal Rastra Bank this week. Along with the market index, the daily turnover amount also slipped as low as Rs208.32 million.  

The market that opened at 1,218.46 points on Sunday gained 1.35 points to close at 1,219.81 points. On Monday, the market index however lost 9.72 points and closed at 1,210.09 points.

The market fell by 15.29 points on Tuesday as well before gaining 4.62 points on Wednesday. On Thursday, Nepse fell marginally by 0.88 points. Consequently, the market closed with a downfall of 1.63 percent in the overall trading days.

Stockbrokers attributed the fall in Nepse to a large number of investors being uncertain by the central bank’s monetary policy that is expected to be unveiled this week.

“The investors who were dismayed by the government’s budget, policies and programme, are now waiting for the monetary policy before increasing their investment at the secondary market,” said a stockbroker under condition of anonymity.

The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also went down 3.66 points to close at 252.09 points with the majority of the trading groups ending in the red.  

Along with a fall in the market index, the average value of the shares listed on the stock market also downsized by Rs20.12 billion, as the market capitalisation fell to Rs1,417.38 billion from Rs1,437.50 billion during the review period.

Except for finance companies and trading, the sub-indices of the remaining eight trading groups went down last week. Index of insurance companies slid the largest of 155.16 points to close at 6,020.58 points.

Manufacturing shed 73.05 points, microfinance lost 44.39 points hotels lost 38.69 points and hydropower lost 38.39 points. Likewise, the index of development bank was down by 14.22 points, commercial banks by 12.49 points and ‘others’ by 9.69 points.

Finance companies were the only gainer and added 0.77 points to its index. The index of trading remained stable at 197.54 points throughout the trading days.

Of the individual companies, Mega Bank Nepal led in terms of both transaction amount and traded number of shares. Nepse carried out transaction of 236,000 units of the bank’s shares worth Rs41.54 million last week.

Likewise, shares of Nepal Investment Bank worth Rs30.17 million were traded over the review period. It was followed by Standard Chartered Bank, promoters’ shares of Nabil Bank and Everest Bank Limited.

Last week, stocks of 186 listed companies were traded. Along with a fall in market index, the transaction amount also declined 7.25 percent to Rs1.04 billion. The traded number of shares also fell to 3,679,600 units from 4,961,110 units.  

Right Shares/Bonus Shares

Company    Type    Units

Nepal Lube Oil Limited    Bonus    65,503

Nirdhan Utthan Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha    Right    4,001,650