Kathmandu, August 16

The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index jumped to a near seven-year high on Sunday with the bull run at the stock market continuing since the past few weeks. The benchmark index surged by 23.63 points or 2.17 per cent to end the day at 1112.05 points. The Nepse index was at a similar level on September 1, 2008, when it was at 1,134.39 points.

On Sunday’s bull run at the stock market was led by banking sector. Banking sub-index rose by 32.79 points or 3.21 per cent to 1,054.13 points. Banking shares are being taken as a lucrative investment after Nepal Rastra Bank raised paid-up capital requirement of commercial banks by four times. Commercial banks have to increase their paid-up capital from the existing Rs two billion to Rs eight billion by mid-July 2017.

In terms of total turnover, commercial banks ranked in the top five position with Machhapuchhre Bank, Everest Bank, NIC Asia Bank, Sanima Bank and Nepal Bangladesh Bank leading the rankings.

Besides banking sector, hotels, hydropower and others subgroups also ended with gains as their sub-indices went up by 0.67 per cent, 1.21 per cent and 5.47 per cent to end at 1,888.27 points, 2,126.95 points and 769.51 points, respectively. However, the sub-indices of development banks, finance and insurance ended in the red zone as they dropped by 1.12 per cent, 0.22 per cent and 0.03 per cent to end at 847.27 points, 538.07 points and 4,608.18 points, respectively.

The sensitive index, which measures the performance of blue chip stocks, surged by 2.66 per cent to 241.06 points. Likewise, the float index rose by 1.66 per cent to 78.74 points. A total of 1,615,436 units of shares of 133 firms worth Rs 988.88 million changed hands through 6,517 transactions on Sunday.

On Sunday’s top five gainers were led by Nepal Investment Bank (Promoter Share), Nepal Investment Bank and Global IME Bank whose share value went up by 10 per cent each to Rs 792, Rs 1,100 and Rs 550, respectively. Likewise, share price of Shikhar Insurance Company and Butwal Power Company increased by 9.99 per cent and 9.97 per cent to Rs 958 and Rs 640, respectively.