Bear rules Nepse roost; 10.79-pt loss

The bearish trend, persisting since last September, continued this week in the capital market -- from January 17 to 21. The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index lost 10.79 points to drop to 518.11 points on the last day of the week's trading. Nepse had opened at 528.90 points last Sunday.

Most of the sectors except hydropower and insurance lost their money in the capital market. Hydropower gained 13.92 points while insurance sector upped by 5.41 points between January 17 and 21. Commercial banks, development banks and finance companies lost 14.27, 6.65, and 6.95 points, respectively.

Nepse trading floor saw transaction worth Rs 155.83 million on 4,171 tradings of 4,93,700 units of shares of 92 companies.
The transaction amount was 0.45 per cent less than last week's Rs 156.54 million. Class `A' companies covered 39.77 per cent of the total transaction with Rs 61.9 million.

Vibhor Development Bank topped in transaction with Rs 16.6 million while National Hydro Power Company topped in unit shares (1,22,000 units). The top traded companies were National Hydro Power Company (Rs 11.29 million), Standard Chartered Bank (Rs 9.97 million), Sunrise Bank (Rs 9.90 million) and Siddhartha Development Bank (Rs 8.77 million).

Shares of Mid-Western Gramin Bikas Bank (1 million units) and Public Development Bank (1.5 million units) were listed with Nepse this week. Also, rights and bonus shares of four companies were listed with Nepse. Rights shares of Universal Finance (5,89,928 units) and bonus shares (1,21,675 units) and rights of Malika Development Bank (14,42,430 units) and bonus shares (1,00,000 units) were listed.