Nepse makes marginal gains over the week

NEPAL Stock Exchange (Nepse) index witnessed marginal increment of 0.48 points, closing at 493.67 last week. The secondary market opened at 493.18 points. The benchmark index made nominal gains for the first two trading days and dropped on Tuesday before rising again on the last two days. Anjan Raj Poudel, proprietor of Thrive Brokerage House, termed the Nepse index’s marginal fluctuation as the stability in the secondary market. “The investors have also not complained about constant follow up from the banks and financial institutions for recovery of loans this fiscal,” he said. Of the nine trading groups, hotels, hydropower and insurance companies and development banks were among the gainers over the last week. Hotels group witnessed the largest gain of 19.38 points whereas indices of finance companies, commercial banks and manufacturing companies suffered a dip. Finance companies witnessed the biggest fall of 1.09 points. The indices of ‘Others’ and Trade groups remained stable at 622.70 and 177.05 points respectively throughout the weekdays. Poudel, however, hopes the capital market will bounce back with the commencement of the new fiscal year. The sensitive index that measures the transaction of the ‘A’ category companies also recorded marginal growth by 0.11 points to close at 123.40 points. Of the individual companies, Chilime Hydropower Company topped the index in terms of transaction amount, totalling Rs 49.36 million. Everest Bank, Commerz and Trust Bank Nepal, Nepal Investment Bank and Nepal SBI Bank also made it onto the top five list in terms of transaction worth. Similarly, in terms of the number of shares, Nabil Balance Fund topped the list with a transaction of 419,376 units. The capital market witnessed a 11.6 percent downfall in the transaction amount last week. The turnover amount was recorded at Rs 378.8 million from transaction of 1,753,534 shares. A total of 262,977 shares worth Rs 428.5 million were traded during the period. ‘A’ category companies witnessed turnover of Rs 230.8 million, which accounted 60.94 percent of the total transaction. Meanwhile, Nepse registered bonus shares of National Life Insurance companies and Nava Durga Finance during the period.