Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) last week rose 27.94 points to close at a 1,148.78 points after the government stepped in to address the ‘interest rate war’ and underlying problems with the country’s only secondary market, which had been in freefall. Some investors even started a hunger strike to shine the spotlight on problems with the sector.

Despite the rise in Nepse, the daily turnover fell to Rs327.52 million from Rs445.63 million in the previous week. 

The secondary market that opened at 1,120.84 points on Sunday gained 10.86 points to close at 1,131.7 points. On Monday, the index added 12.49 points to its index before going down 3.09 points on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the market inched up 0.08 points while on Thursday, the market index increased by 7.6 points. 

During the review period, three major developments took place. Firstly, Nepse finally provided access to individual investors to use the online trading platform. Secondly, the Parliamentary Financial Committee called on the Finance Minister and Nepal Rastra Bank Governor to provide solutions to the problems concerning the index. Lastly, a group of investors started a hunger strike, demanding the government to address problems in the sector. 

Consequently, the market closed by gaining 2.49 percent in overall trading days during the review period.

Stockbrokers considered the gain as market correction. “In addition, the initiatives taken by various stakeholders also helped to boost the confidence of the investors’ to some extent,” said a stockbroker under condition of maintaining anonymity. The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also inclined by 6.37 points to close at 244.7 points with a rise in the sub-indices of almost all of the trading groups  including commercial banks, the sub-index that holds a major share in market capitalisation.

Along with the soaring market index, the average value of shares listed on the stock market also increased Rs33.31 billion, as the market capitalisation stood at Rs1,370.35 billion, up from Rs1,337.04 billion in the previous week.

Except for hotels, the remaining sub-indices landed in the green last week. Non-life insurance gained the largest of 138.14 points and closed at 5,086.8 points. 

It was followed by life insurance (133.53 points), hydropower (56.97 points), commercial banks (31.47 points), development banks (31.25 points) and microfinance of 15.95 points. Of the small gainers, manufacturing added 8.17 points to its index, followed by finance companies with 7.98 points, trading with 2.19 points and ‘others’ with 0.03 points. 

The sub-index of Hotels was the only loser of the review period, dropping 20.98 points.   

Last week, stocks worth Rs1.63 billion were transacted, which was 26.57 percent less compared to the transaction amount in the previous week. The total number of traded shares also declined to 5,136,924 units from 7,347,318 units.