Nepal Stock Exchange last week slipped marginally by 2.43 points to close at 1,291.96 points, as short term investors continued their rush to book profits amid soaring stock prices.

Along with the market index, the average daily turnover also fell to Rs693.62 million in the last week from Rs1.10 billion in the previous week.

The secondary market opened at 1,294.39 points on Sunday, slid 16.71 points to close at 1,277.68 points. However, the market gained 21.73 points and 1.87 points on Monday and Tuesday respectively. The market could not maintain the momentum on the remaining two trading days, losing 3.68 points and 5.64 points respectively.

Eventually, the market declined by a marginal 0.19 percent over the review period.

Stock analysts termed the slight fall in the NEPSE index as market correction. “After the short term investors rushed to book even the nominal amount of capital gain from the rise in stock prices, the market underwent the fall,” said a stockbroker on request of remaining anonymous.

The sensitive index that measures the performance of blue chips companies declined by 1.3 points to close at 276.52 points after a decline in the stock prices of majority of the trading groups including the commercial bank, which holds major shares in market capitalisation.  

With share prices falling, investors lost Rs27 million from the transaction, as the market capitalisation dropped to Rs1,603.59 billion from Rs1,603.86 billion.

Out of 11 trading groups, investors in six segments recorded losses during the review period. Life-insurance lost the largest of 104.3 points to close at 6,764.65 points. It was followed by hydropower, which shed 69.89 points.

Similarly, microfinance lost 24.71 points, development banks lost 14.65 points, finance companies lost 6.79 points and commercial banks lost 3.1 points.

Of the gainers, manufacturing added the largest of 215.29 points in its index. Hotel gained 56.19 points, non-life insurance gained 20.72 points, trading gained 13.05 points and ‘others’ gained 12.36 points.

Regarding the individual companies’ trading amount, promoters’ share of Sanima Bank with holding transaction of its stocks worth Rs325.08 million topped the group. It was followed by Shivam Cements, Nepal Bank Limited, Nepal Credit and Commerce Bank and NMB Bank Limited.

Last week, stocks worth Rs3.46 billion were traded, 21.54 percent lower than the amount in the previous week. The total number of traded shares also plunged to 12,401,838 units from 12,707,948 units.

NEPSE listed 17,495,099.25 units of ordinary shares from nine companies over the review period.  

Right Shares/Bonus Shares

Company    Type    Units

Himalayan Bank Limited    Bonus    4,057,265

Mission Development Bank    Bonus    571,208.22

Salt Trading Corporation    Bonus    307,424

Sparsha Laghubittya Bittiya Sanstha    IPO    829,630

Soaltee Hotel    Bonus    6,661,163

Bhargav Bikash Bank    Bonus    264,000

Civil Laghubittya Bittiya Sanstha    Bonus    43,890

Kabeli Bikash Bank    Bonus    737,066.4

SBI Bank Ltd    Bonus    4,023,452.63