Kathmandu, December 24

The country’s only secondary market continued on its downward trajectory for the third consecutive week, with the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index retreating below the 1,500-threshold in the week of December 18 to 22.

The benchmark index that had opened at 1,530.06 points on Sunday had inched up by 1.29 points by the day’s closing. The local bourse reversed course and dropped by 16.47 points the next day and fell 18.89 points on Tuesday to land at 1,495.99 points. On Wednesday, Nepse fell by another 25.36 points as investors sought to offload their shares for fears of market plunging further. On Thursday, the benchmark index edged up by 4.78 points on back of investors looking to buy shares at reduced price, but the gain was not enough to recoup the losses of the three previous days.

Nepse’s weekly loss amounted to 54.65 points or 3.57 per cent, with the benchmark index resting at 1,475.41 points.

The sensitive index, which gauges the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, dropped by 12.24 points or 3.7 per cent to 318.76 points. Likewise, the float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded also fell by 4.58 points or 4.01 per cent to 109.52 points.

On a positive note, the weekly transaction amount went up by 47.38 per cent when compared to the previous week. Altogether 3.63 million shares of 156 companies that amounted to Rs 2.85 billion were traded through 21,519 transactions during the review period against a total of 15,259 transactions of 3.13 million scrips of 156 firms worth Rs 1.93 billion in the previous week. It has to be noted though that the share market had remained opened for only four days against the regular five days in the previous week due to a public holiday.

Even so, the daily transactions have gone down significantly in the recent weeks as investors have adopted wait-and-see mode not seeing any immediate benefit in investing in shares at present, according to analysts.

Apart from others and trading, all the subgroups landed in the red territory in the review week.

Others increased by 13.88 points or 1.89 per cent to 749.36 points, buoyed by Nepal Telecom (NT)’s share value surging by 3.83 per cent to Rs 705. Investors had been attracted to the stocks of NT following its announcement of signing an agreement with a consultancy partner to look for a strategic partner.

Similarly, trading sub-index inched up 1.12 points or 0.55 per cent to 205.03 points due to Salt Trading Corporation’s stock price rising by 3.59 per cent to Rs 231.

On the other hand, hydropower took the biggest plunge of 117.17 points or 6.3 per cent to 1,743.54 points. This was because of Chilime’s share price slumping by 8.16 per cent to Rs 900, Sanima Mai down 3.8 per cent to Rs 784 and Api losing 4.6 per cent to Rs 394.

After dipping by 0.86 per cent in the past week, insurance subgroup took a dive of 330.09 points or 4.52 per cent to 6,972.29 points. Nepal Insurance took a beating of 6.8 per cent to close at Rs 850 and National Insurance was down 5.48 per cent to Rs 2,140, among others.

Banking subgroup lost 63.16 points or 4.32 per cent to 1,398.7 points because of commercial banks like Standard Chartered down 4.45 per cent to Rs 1,997 and Machhapuchchhre plunging by 22.18 per cent to Rs 400.

Manufacturing descended by 84.56 points or 3.81 per cent to 2,136.91 points, weighed down by Unilver Nepal’s stock price slipping by five per cent to Rs 27,550.

Close on its heels, finance subgroup went down by 26.09 points or 3.56 per cent to 706.92 points as Citizen Investment Trust dropped 4.87 per cent to Rs 3,753.

Hotels fell by 48.18 points or 2.54 per cent to 1,845.1 points because of Soaltee down 2.52 per cent to Rs 309, Oriental down 4.21 per cent to Rs 455 and Taragaon down 0.95 per cent to Rs 209.

Development banks managed to limit its loss to 27.68 points or 1.76 per cent to 1,544.44 points.

Meanwhile, Everest Bank topped the chart in all three categories of weekly turnover, transaction volume and number of traded shares with 219,000 of the banks shares changing hands through 2,531 transactions that amounted to Rs 667.15 million.

The other listed firms to make it to the list of top-five with regards to turnover were Bank of Kathmandu Lumbini with Rs 96.09 million, Chilime Hydropower with Rs 95.92 million, Siddhartha Bank with Rs 92.65 million and Neco Insurance with Rs 78.02 million.