Kathmandu, April 22

After capping a tumultuous 2079 BS on a positive note, share investors failed to maintain the momentum in the first trading week of 2080 BS. Consequently, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index slipped by 30.07 points or 1.55 per cent in the trading week between April 16 and 20, with the turnover, trading volume and number of transactions all taking a beating.

The sensitive index, which measures performance of class 'A' stocks, dropped by 1.32 per cent or 4.86 points to 363.12 points in the review period.

The float index that gauges performances of shares actually traded also fell by 1.56 per cent to 133.39 points.

Altogether 21.14 million shares were traded during the review week through 131,789 transactions that amounted to Rs 4.62 billion. The weekly turnover fell by 30.47 per cent compared to the previous trading week, when 21.14 million shares had changed hands through 192,018 transactions that had totalled Rs 6.64 billion.

The average turnover in the review week stood at Rs 924 million, compared to the average turnover of Rs 1.32 billion in the previous week.

The benchmark index had opened at 1,934.47points on Sunday and fell by 2.79 points to 1,931.68 points by the time of closing.

The market went on to lose 23.63 points on Monday to 1,908.05 points before decreasing again by 3.07 points on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the benchmark gained 15.14 points before falling by 15.72 points on Thursday to settle at 1,904.40 for the trading week.

Apart from hotels and tourism and non-life insurance, all the subgroups landed in the red in the review week.

Manufacturing and processing led the pack of losers after falling by 3.61 per cent to 4,353.43 points. Similarly, finance fell by 3.10 per cent to 1,605.21 points; microfinance decreased by 3.09 per cent to 3,412.66 points; development banks fell by 2.72 per cent to 3,459.72 points; investment lost 2.66 per cent to 63.62 points; hydropower dropped by 2.37 per cent to 2,465.47 points; trading fell by 2.09 per cent to 2,126.08 points; others decreased by 1.82 per cent to 1,405.82 points; mutual funds fell by 1.82 per cent to 13.49 points; life insurance decreased by 1.73 per cent to 9,476.65 points; and banking shed 0.71 per cent to 1,245.94 points.

The hotels and tourism subgroup surged by 6.06 per cent to 3,547.30 points, while non life insurance rose by 0.02 per cent to 8,605.23 points.

A version of this article appears in the print on April 23, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.