Stock market ends week 6.65 points down

NEPAL Stock Exchange (Nepse) slipped 6.65 points last week to settle at 529.15 points on Thursday. The market, which opened at 535.80 points on Sunday, dropped 2.84 points on the Monday before gaining a marginal 0.09 on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the benchmark index shed 3.31 points followed by a 0.59-point loss on Thursday. Ram Chandra Bhattarai, director at Aryatara Investment _ Securities, termed the downfall “a normal scenario”. “The hope that the central bank would ask banks and financial institutions (BFIs) to hike their paid-up capital had contributed to the rise in the index the previous week,” he said. “But as the central bank did not do so, investors were hesitant to invest.” The monetary policy has adopted a strategy of raising BFIs’ paid-up capital requirement, but has not fixed the size of the increment. Currently, commercial banks have to maintain a minimum paid-up capital of Rs 2 billion, national-level development bank Rs 640 million, and national-level finance companies Rs 200 million. Of the nine sub-groups on the exchange, only four saw their indices rise during the review period. With a gain of 47.92 points, the group representing insurance companies was last week’s highest gainer. Other gainers were finance companies, trading and hydropower companies. Bhattarai said investors lately are getting attracted towards the stocks of lifeinsurance companies considering the sector safer. “Besides, investors are also finding the sector as the best alternative to expand their portfolio,” he said. The Others group was last week’s biggest loser — down 17.62 points. Hotels and commercial banks followed. The sensitive index that measures transactions of ‘A’ category companies declined by 2.29 points to close at 132.76 points. Among individual companies, Everest Bank posted the highest transaction of Rs 92.74 million. NIC Asia Bank, Chilime Hydropower Company, Nepal Investment Bank and Nepal Credit _ Commerce Bank were the top five companies by transaction worth. Nabil Balance Fund continued to top the chart in terms of the number of shares traded (505,893 units). The overall market transaction rose 84.13 percent to Rs 724.6 million from the trading of 2,531,949 shares. Transaction of ‘A’ category companies amounted to Rs 378.7 million — 52.27 percent of the total market transaction.