Kathmandu, April 21 As the number of investors who have started flocking to the secondary market to invest in shares of commercial banks has been steadily rising in the last couple of days, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) has shown a positive trend in the past few weeks. Continuing with this trend, Nepse went up by 2.59 per cent or 31.89 points to rest at 1,264.20 points today. “In recent days, investors seem to be more confident of investing in the secondary market and this is likely to continue in the coming weeks,” said Rajan Lamsal, general secretary of Nepal Investors Forum. Similar to the Nepse index, the sensitive index increased by 2.95 per cent or 7.84 points to rest at 273.41 points and the float index also went up by 2.63 per cent or 2.39 points to 93.38 points. Among the 11 sub-indices, manufacturing and non-life insurance were the only subgroups that settled in the red zone today. Like in the previous days, the trading sub-index did not witness any transaction. The banking subgroup led the pack of gainers, rising by 4.1 per cent or 45.94 points to land at 1,167.63 points. The share price of Standard Chartered Bank, Nepal SBI Bank and Himalayan Bank increased by more than nine per cent today. Share price of Standard Chartered Bank rose by Rs 62 to Rs 683 today. Similarly, share price of Nepal SBI Bank went up by Rs 46 to Rs 511 and that of Himalayan Bank soared by Rs 48 to Rs 580. Meanwhile, share price of Swadeshi Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha also rose by over nine per cent today. It went up by Rs 56 to rest at Rs 624. Seeking anonymity, one broker informed that investors are expecting to receive the same price for their shares like in the previous days, especially of commercial banks. At the end of the day, altogether 3,375,153 shares of 171 companies that amounted to Rs 1.03 billion were traded through 10,671 transactions. Among the biggest losers today, share price of Best Finance Company was down by 4.16 per cent to Rs 92. Similarly, Nepal Seva Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha’s share price fell by 4.04 per cent to Rs 475.