Kathmandu, February 20

Despite the growls of the bear in the beginning of the week, the cyclical bull proved it has more room to run in the later part of the week, from February 14 to 18. Hence, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index clocked a weekly gain of 9.56 points or 0.75 per cent to end at a fresh all-time high of 1,273.28 points.

Starting the trading week at 1,263.72 points on Sunday, the benchmark index had dropped by 4.37 points by the day’s closing. It shed another 1.12 points on Monday and dipped by 0.89 point on Tuesday. Come Wednesday, the local bourse more than recovered the losses of the previous trading days by advancing 8.74 points to breach previous records to rest at 1,266.08 points. Investor optimism persisted on Thursday as well, especially on the positive political cues, as Nepse gained 7.2 points to record a fresh high of 1,273.28 points.

While correction and pauses are necessary and healthy parts of elongated trends, stock analysts advise: “Now is the time to be a selective buyer.”

Altogether 8.47 million shares that amounted to Rs 2.54 billion were traded through 12,548 transactions during the review period. In comparison, 10,107 transactions of 3.3 million scrips of 130 companies worth Rs 1.90 billion had been

undertaken in the previous week.

The sensitive index, which gauges the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, rose 0.88 per cent to 274.85 points. Similarly, the float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded also went up 1.20 per cent to 91.67 points during the review period.

Among the subgroups, trading held steady at 201.38 points, while hydropower, development banks and insurance subgroups landed in the red.

Commercial banks led the market rally in the week, with the banking sub-index clocking a gain of 1.57 per cent to 1,168.62 points. Share value of Nepal Investment Bank, among others, ascended by Rs 18 to Rs 932.

With Unilever Nepal’s share price surging by Rs 551 to Rs 28,128, the manufacturing subgroup rose 1.47 per cent to 1,979.48 points.

Adding to the previous week’s muted gain of 0.25 per cent, finance climbed 1.34 per cent to 611.27 points this time around.

Hotels subgroup managed to recover some of the losses of the previous weeks by edging up 0.62 per cent to 1,760.84 points.

Others sub-index inched up 0.14 per cent to 822.37 points on the back of Nepal Telecom’s share value up one rupee to Rs 700 per unit.

Meanwhile, hydropower subgroup — which had recorded heftiest gain in the past week — was the biggest loser this time around. The sub-index slumped 2.40 per cent to 2,263.99 points, weighed down by Chilime losing Rs 24 to Rs 1,383.

Because of investors offloading overheated stocks of development banks, the subgroup dropped 0.32 per cent to 1,257.55 points.

Some of the gain witnessed by insurance firms in the previous week was wiped out as the subgroup dipped 0.10 per cent to 5,562.21 points. Stock price of insurance companies like Nepal Life Insurance went down by Rs 61 to Rs 3,164.