Money
NEPSE rallies to a new high in 2020
The turnover more than doubled compared to the previous week on investors’ buying interest in banking and microfinance stocks.Himendra Mohan Kumar
Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) index rallied hard over the last week to close a whopping 97 points higher on Thursday, led by the buying interest of investors in banking, microfinance and life insurance stocks.
“The market is expected to do better in the coming days with the revival of interest in nearly all the listed sub-indices,” a broker said.
The index had jumped a critical level and risen 47 points week-on-week at the end of the second trading week of 2020.
Market participants say the focus of investors at the beginning of the year seems to have shifted to stocks that can be held over the long-term and can generate good dividends.
The NEPSE index closed on Thursday at 1,310.23, up from 1,213.11 the previous week. The total turnover on Thursday more than doubled to Rs1,699,995,107 from Rs837,035,757 seen the previous Thursday.
The total traded shares traded on the market stood at 5,025,563 compared to 3,849,722 on the same day, a week earlier. There were 17,295 transactions in all and as many as 181 company stocks were traded. At the end of trading last week, the total market capitalisation stood at Rs1,679,255.36 million.
On Thursday, Himalayan Distillery Limited was the top traded stock in terms of value while Civil Bank Ltd Promoter Share was the top traded in terms of volume.
The market sentiments in recent weeks have been led by the biggest merger in Nepal’s banking sector between Global IME and Janata Bank, which got formalized recently.
Market participants have cited lack of liquidity as their biggest concern and the primary reason for the domestic stock market’s underperformance.