KATHMADNU, August 17

The bull run in the country’s only secondary market continued on Monday as well, as Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index surged by 45.55 points or 4.1 per cent to land at 1,157.60 points.

Even the two-day nationwide strike failed to dampen the mood of investors, as the benchmark index had ascended by 23.63 points on Sunday as well.

Nepse observed two circuit breakers on Monday, first for 15 minutes and second for half hour. The surge on Monday can be attributed to the recent policy requiring banks and financial institutions to increase their paid-up capital and the fact that Nepse had now implemented paperless transaction, as per stock analysts.

“Since many companies are yet to fully dematerialise their shares, the demand exceeded the supply,” explained Rabindra Bhattarai, a stock market analyst.

With on Monday’s gain, Nepse index is closing in on the all-time high of 1175.38 points recorded on August 31, 2008.

While concurring that there are high chances of Nepse breaching its previous record, Bhattarai warned that the current growth is not backed by strong fundamental factors and the market risks have gone up as well.

Sensitive index, which gauges performance of class ‘A’ stocks, rose by 11.01 points to 252.07 points. Similarly, the float index that measures performance of shares actually traded also added 3.43 points to 82.17 points.

Apart from trading, all the subgroups gained during the day.

Banking and manufacturing sub-indices climbed by hefty 64.67 points to 1,118.80 points and 67.46 points to 1,870.22 points, respectively. Hotels landed at 1,917.94 points (up 29.67 points), others at 798.88 points (up 29.37), insurance at 4,636.27 points (up 28.09 points) and hydropower at 2,152.40 points (25.45 points). Similarly, development banks added 9.48 points to settle at 856.75 points, while finance inched up 1.96 points to 540.03 points.

Conversely, trading shed 6.41 points to rest at 206.51 points.Altogether 1,353,649 shares of 127 companies amounting to Rs 825.57 million were traded through 3,667 transactions during the day.

Banking stocks were in high demand, with share value of banks like Machhapuchchhre, Everest, Prabhu, Century and Sanima going up by 10 per cent.

On the flip side, Sewa Bikas Bank, Rapti Bheri Bikas Bank, Bishal Bazaar Co, Nagbeli Laghubitta Bikas Bank and Purnima Bikas Bank were the top losers during the day.