Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index recorded a marginal gain of 0.11 points last week to close at 1,191.31 points. It was a positive sign for Nepal’s only secondary market which had been battered by low investor turnout due to banks imposing higher interest rates.

The average daily turnover amount was improved to Rs215.44 million from Rs211.25 million of previous week.

The market that opened at 1,191.2 points on Sunday gained 3.62 points to close at 1,194.82 points. The gain on the first day was offset by successive falls during the following two trading days. On Monday, the market dropped 0.44 points and Tuesday saw another loss of 2.91 points. The market picked up 2.4 points on Wednesday before ending the week with a 2.56 point loss on Thursday.

As a result, the market closed with a downfall of 0.009 percent in the overall trading days.

Stockbrokers attributed the slight rise to low confidence among large investors to invest in Nepse, which was mainly triggered by the high interest rate charged by the banks. “Despite being affected by the bank’s reluctance to reduce the interest rate by a notable mark, the secondary market however maintained stability during the review period,” said a stockbroker under condition of anonymity.

The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also went up marginally by 0.19 points to close at 251.15 points with the majority of blue chip companies landing in red while the index of commercial bank, which holds a major portion of the total stocks listed on Nepse, observed nominal growth of 5.01 points.  

Along with a fall in the market index, the average value of the shares listed on the stock market also added Rs6.56 billion, as the market capitalisation increased to Rs1,416.70 billion from Rs1,410.14 billion.

The biggest gainer among the 11 trading groups was life insurance, adding 7.33 points followed by development bank (5.3 points) and commercial bank (5.01 points). The sub-index of trading remained stable at 196.69 points.

During the review period, the biggest loser was the index of non-life insurance which plunged by 54.71 points. Likewise, hotels lost 38.31 points, microfinance lost 10.5 points and ‘others’ lost 7.46 points. Similarly, the index of hydropower went down by 4.5 points, manufacturing by 4.49 points and the finance companies lost 1.82 points.

Of the individual companies, Machhapuchchhre Bank led in terms of both transaction amount and the number of traded shares. A total of 335,000 units of the bank’s shares worth Rs68.71 million were transacted last week.

Likewise, NMB Bank recorded transaction of its shares worth Rs58.03 million to finish in second spot, followed by Nepal Credit and Commerce Bank, promoters’ shares of Neco Insurance and Sanima Mai Hydropower. Last week, stocks of 181 listed companies were traded. Along with a slight rise in market index, the transaction amount also went up nominally by 1.94 percent to Rs1.94 billion. The traded number of shares also inclined up to 4,084,520 units from 3,945,760 units.