Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) index surged to new 2020 highs on Thursday with bullish investors pumping in fresh capital to buy shares they perceived were a value proposition.

‘All sub-indices rose, except trading, which drove the market index higher,” a broker said.

Market participants say the fundamentals are currently strong and the share market may consolidate around the current levels before making another attempt at an upswing in the days ahead. Their sentiments got strengthened after the market breached the critical 1,300 level during the third week of the year.

The focus of investors since the beginning of 2020 appears 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 1,325.38, up from 1,297.47 the previous week. The total turnover on Thursday rose to Rs1,966,219,749 from Rs1,384,209,412 the previous Thursday.

The total number of shares traded on the market, on Thursday, stood at 4,602,101. There were 19,874 transactions in all and as many as 178 company stocks got traded. At the end of the trading last week, the total market capitalisation stood at Rs1,690,451.32 million.

On Thursday, Surya Life Insurance Company Limited was the top traded stock in terms of both value and 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 formalised in the last quarter of 2019.

Market participants cite lack of liquidity as their biggest concern and the primary reason for the domestic stock market’s underperformance.