KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 10

The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index fell by 43.78 points or 2.23 per cent to retreat below 1,920 points in the trading week between December 4 and 7.

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As the secondary market continues to remain volatile at present, stakeholders hope for some easing in the country's liquidity standings and increase in remittance flow for the market to reverse course.

Kumar Keshar Bista, a financial analyst and advisor, opined that the liquidity situation will be resolved if remittance flow into the country continues to improve for the next six months. 'The secondary market has not been able to grow due to the weak liquidity situation in the country,' he said.

Similarly, Chhote Lal Rauniyar, former president of Nepal Investors Forum, shared that the introduction of necessary provisions for smooth running of the secondary market, introduction of new stockbrokers, and increasing remittance are key to the growth of share market in the coming days.

'With increased prices of some stocks over the past few weeks, implementation of provisions introduced for the share market and increasing remittance flow, the share market is likely to go up. However, the anticipated growth of the market will take some time,' Rauniyar shared.

The sensitive index, which measures performance of class 'A' stocks, decreased by 2.61 per cent or 10.02 points to 373.64 points in the review period. The float index that gauges performances of shares actually traded also slipped by 2.40 per cent to 136.08 points.

Altogether 18.49 million shares were traded during the review week through 91,777 transactions that amounted to Rs 5.85 billion. The weekly turnover decreased by over 11 per cent compared to the previous week when 16.79 million shares had changed hands through 110,957 transactions that totalled Rs 6.64 billion.

It has to be noted, however, that the share market had remained open for four days in the review week against the normal five days the week before.

In this regard, the average daily turnover in the past week was Rs 1.32 billion and it increased to Rs 1.46 billion this week.

The benchmark index had opened at 1,961.06 points on Sunday and rose by 2.16 points to close at 1,963.22 points for the day before reversing course for the remainder of the trading week. The market fell by 24.46 points on Monday and lost 4.88 points on Tuesday to 1,933.88 points. On Wednesday, the market fell again by 16.60 points to 1,917.28 points. The market remained closed on Thursday in celebration of 'Yomari Punhi' and 'Udhauli' festivals.

Apart from hotels and tourism, all the subgroups landed in the red this week. The hotels and tourism sub-index inched up by 0.22 per cent or 5.95 points to 2,712.47 points.

Meanwhile, finance subgroup dropped by 4.19 per cent or 67.90 points to 1,552.55 points; development banks lost 3.14 per cent or 109.48 points to 3,375.38 points; investment fell by 1.47 per cent or 0.84 points to 56.48 points; hydropower dropped by 2.56 per cent or 52.20 points to 1,984.32 points; manufacturing and processing fell by 4.36 per cent or 227.38 points to 4,986.20 points; nonlife insurance lost 1.28 per cent or 97.91 points to 7,551.46 points.

Banking, the subgroup with the highest weightage on the market capitalisation, landed at 1,337.93 points, down 3.03 per cent or 41.81 points. Mutual funds dipped by 0.52 per cent or 0.07 point to 13.36 points; microfinance shed 0.90 per cent or 39.69 points to 4,366.46 points; life insurance edged down 0.38 per cent or 35.53 points to 9,211.31 points; and the trading subgroup shed 0.08 per cent or 1.90 points to 1,860.14 points.

A version of this article appears in the print on December 11, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.