KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 1

The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index edged up by 0.80 per cent or 14.80 points over the trading week between September 25 and 29 to rest above the threshold of 1,850 points, finally snapping the five consecutive week-on-week losing streak. The recovery, however, was limited, with the turnover, trading volume and number of transactions taking a hit as the country's sole secondary market was gripped by festive fever.

The sensitive index, which measures performance of class 'A' stocks, increased by 1.11 per cent or 3.99 points to 363.42 points. Similarly, the float index that gauges performances of shares actually traded also witnessed a gain of 1.24 per cent or 1.59 points to 129.36 points.

A total of 9.28 million shares were traded during the review week through 65,731 transactions that amounted to Rs 2.85 billion.

The weekly turnover decreased by 32 per cent compared to the preceding week when 15.22 million shares had changed hands through 95,768 transactions that totalled Rs 4.20 billion. The average daily turnover, which was Rs 1.05 billion in the past week dropped to Rs 713.32 million this week.

The secondary market opened with the benchmark index at 1,838.96 points on Sunday and fell by 23.83 points to close at 1,815.13 points before catching the upward trend for the rest of the trading week. The secondary market was closed on Monday due to Ghatasthapana, the first day of the 10-day-long Dashain festival. The Nepse index rose by 15.92 points on Tuesday and added 6.41 points to close at 1,837.46 points on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Nepse index jumped by 16.30 points to close at 1,853.76 points for the week. It was mixed results for the subgroups in the review week against the bloodbath of the previous week when all of them had landed in the red.

The banking, manufacturing and processing, and mutual funds saw an increase of 1.66 per cent, 0.52 per cent and 0.07 per cent, respectively. Also, hotels and tourism increased by 0.53 per cent, trading by 0.02 per cent, non-life insurance by 0.20 per cent, development banks by 1.83 per cent, and microfinance by 2.26 per cent.

Meanwhile, others sub-index shed one per cent, hydropower fell by 0.66 per cent, finance by 0.54 per cent, life insurance by 0.12 per cent, and investment by 0.56 per cent.

A version of this article appears in the print on October 2, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.