Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index shed 10.68 points to close at 1,180.63 points last week, as investors continued to stay away from the country’s only secondary market due to banks’ charging high interest rates.

The bearish trend in Nepse saw the average daily turnover amount plunging to a mere Rs183.74 million, down from Rs215.44 million in the previous week.   

 The market index performed abysmally during the review period, posting losses during all five trading days. Nepse lost 1.41 points on Sunday to close at 1,189.88 points.

The index went down by 0.21 points, 1.46 points and 0.89 points on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. However, on Thursday, the market saw the largest loss during the review period, dropping 6.69 points.

As a result, the market closed with a downfall of 0.89 percent during the review period.

Stockbrokers attributed the fall in Nepse to low confidence among large investors to invest in the market, which was mainly triggered by high interest rate charged by the banks. “Although a number of listed companies including commercial banks have unveiled good financial health according to their last fiscal year report, it failed to attract investors,” said a stockbroker under condition of anonymity.

The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also went down 2.02 points to close at 249.13 points with the majority of blue chips companies including commercial banks landing in the red.  

Along with a fall in the market index, the average value of shares listed on the stock market also declined by Rs11.86 billion, as the market capitalisation fell to Rs1,404.84 billion from Rs1,416.70 billion.

Seven trading groups shed points, with life insurance being the biggest loser, shedding 178.11 points. It was followed by non-life insurance (94.24 points), manufacturing (54.78 points) and hydropower (24.36 points). Likewise, the indices of microfinance also went down by 22.12 points, commercial banks by 7.99 points and finance companies by 4.94 points.

Of the four gainers, hotels added the most at 36.49 points to close at 1,844.94 points. ‘Others’ gained 5.01 points, trading gained 4.22 points while development bank added 3.56 points in its index.

Of the individual companies, promoters’ shares of Progressive Finance Limited led in terms of both transaction amount and the number of traded shares. A total of 585,000 units of the company’s promoters’ shares worth Rs59.04 million were traded last week.

Likewise, Nepal Life Insurance saw a total transaction of its shares worth Rs41.83 million to finish in second position, which was followed by First Microfinance Development Bank, Chhimek Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha and Sanima Mai Hydropower.

Last week, stocks of 181 listed companies were traded. Along with a fall in market index, the transaction amount also declined by 14.68 percent to Rs918.73 million. The traded number of shares also went down to 3,647,840 units from 4,084,520 units.