Nepal Stock Exchange last week gained 11.59 points to close at 1,149.34 points, after investors rushed to purchase shares of companies that are likely to offer dividends soon.
Despite the rise in the market index, the daily turnover fell as low as Rs186.88 million last week, down from an average of Rs205.17 million in the previous week.
Last week, the secondary market opened at 1,137.75 on Sunday and fell 4.02 points to close at 1,133.73 points. On Monday, the market lost 1.34 points before rising during the final three days of trading, gaining 2.42 points, 7.8 points and 6.73 points respectively.
Stockbrokers said investors poured money in the stock exchange to buy shares at bargain prices after majority of the listed firms saw their share prices take a beating in the past few weeks.
“Citing a large fall in share prices, investors rushed to purchase shares of companies that have reported good financial health,” said a stockbroker on condition of anonymity.
The sensitive index that measures the trading of shares of blue chips companies also added 2.93 points to close at 252.05 points.
Of the 11 trading groups, indices of eight went up during the review period. Life insurance gained the largest of 87.98 points. Hotels, microfinance, hydropower and commercial banks also posted double-digit gains. ‘Others,’ development banks and finance companies witnessed nominal gains in their indices.
Non-life insurance and manufacturing were the two losers, with the former recording a double-digit loss.
There was no transaction of shares in the trading sub-group and ended the week at 290.23 points.
With a rise in transaction volume, the market capitalisation inclined to Rs1,460.53 billion from Rs1,445.56 billion, making investors gain Rs14.97 billion in the book value of their investment portfolio.
Last week, Prabhu Bank witnessed the largest transaction volume of Rs87.05 million. Machhapuchchhre Bank, NIC Asia Bank, Nepal Bank Limited and Nabil Bank were among the top five companies with large turnovers during the period.
The transaction amount jumped 13.85 percent to Rs934.40 million. There were cumulative transactions of 3,484,270 units of shares, up from 3,334,530 units in the previous week. Nepal Stock Exchange listed 78 million units of initial public offerings of two companies—NIC Asia Bank and Siddhartha Bank Limited 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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