The Nepal Stock Exchange index last week inclined 19.59 points, compared to the previous week, to close at 1,149.40 points, with promoter shares of listed companies driving demand.
Despite a rise in the index, the average daily turnover fell marginally to Rs200.35 last week from Rs200.39 million in the previous week.
The market index had opened at Rs1,129.81 points on Sunday, fell 4.66 points to close for the day at Rs1,125.15 points. On Monday and Tuesday, the market however gained 10.42 points and 10.12 points respectively. On Wednesday, the market again slid by 4.98 points, followed by a gain of 8.69 points on Thursday.
Overall, the market index was up by 1.73 percent.
Investors said the market was affected by the festival season along with the low confidence in government policy. “As a result, the transaction volume has dropped to a pathetic level,” said Rajan Lamsal, a member of the Nepal Investors’ Forum.
According to stockbrokers, the market last week inched up marginally due to the large transaction amount of promoter shares. “Amid low participation of the individual investors in the trading of primary shares, the promoter shares helped correct the market,” said a stockbroker in the condition of anonymity.
Last week, the sensitive index that measures the performance of blue chips companies went up 4.65 points week-on-week to close at 251.97 points. The sensitive index also recorded a notable gain after the majority of the trading groups added points in their indices along with a double-digit rise in the index of commercial banks.
Last week, investors gained Rs24.87 billion in the book value of their investment portfolio, after the market capitalisation surged to Rs1,460.18 billion from Rs1,435.31 billion.
During the review period, except hotels and trading, the other nine trading groups witnessed an upward swing in their indices. Life insurance and non-life insurance companies were the biggest gainers. While life insurers’ index added 61.43 points, the index of non-life insurance went up 42.64 points.
Manufacturing, microfinance, hydropower, development banks, commercial banks and ‘others’ were among the gainers, all of which observed double-digit gains. Finance companies’ index inched up 7.86 points.
Hotels were the only losers during the review period, dropping 20.54 points. Trading remained stable throughout the review period.
Regarding the transaction amount of individual companies, Shivam Cement stood in pole position after Rs78.54 million worth of stock was transacted during the review period. Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Prabhu Bank, Siddhartha Bank and promoters’ shares of Bank of Kathmandu were among the top five in the segment.
Last week, stocks worth Rs1.10 billion were traded which was 10 percent more than the trading volume the previous week. The number of traded shares also went up to 4,377,470 units from 4,041,920 units.
Nepal Stock Exchange listed a cumulative 14,113,278 units primary shares of Prime Commercial Bank and Global IME Bank during the review period.
Rajesh Khanal is a business reporter for The Kathmandu Post covering insurance, the capital market, trade and macroeconomic issues. Khanal has also taught economics at a number of colleges in Kathmandu.
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