Kathmandu, July 22 :

With share prices of commercial banks continuing to escalate, stock trading at Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) registered a healthy growth for the third consecutive week. As a result, Nepse index gained over nine points this week.

Trading at the country’s sole secondary market opened at 386.83 points on Sunday and closed at 395.89 points on Thursday, the last day of trading under the regular lot. Nepse had gained about two points last week.

Of the eight groups at the Nepse floor, half of them registered growth, two groups lost and hotel and trading groups remained constant.

According to Nepse, a total of 231,599 units of shares valued at Rs 76,724,103 were traded through 1,137 transactions over the week. Last week, a total of 123,819 unit of shares changed hands generating a turnover of Rs 53,923,578 from 1,511 transactions. Of the listed 63 companies for share trading, 52 companies saw transactions this week.

The weekly trading report shows that the commercial banks group, which is the largest scrip at the Nepse by volume, registered an impressive growth of 14.35 points. The group, which had gained over two points last week, opened at 437.49 points on Sunday and closed at 451.84 points on Thursday.

The manufacturing group’s index rallied up to close at 301.77 points from the opening 301.11 points on Sunday. The insurance group gained 2.71 points during the five day trading, as its index closed at 383.96 points on Thursday. The group, which had gained about two points last week, began its trading at 381.25 points on Sunday. The finance group registered a marginal growth, as its index stood at 261.74 points from the opening 261.37 points over the week.

The other and the development banks groups failed to continue the growth trend. The other group lost by 1.70 points, while the development banks group suffered a loss of 1.79 points over the week.

Trading of the other group opened at 410 points and closed at 408.30 points, while the development banks group began at 294.40 points on Sunday and dropped to 292.61 points on the closing day.

The trading group and the hotel group, meanwhile, saw no change in their index and remained constant at 148.11 points and 180.77 points throughout the week.

The commercial banks group cornered 74.63 per cent share. The insurance group followed it and stood second with 12.05 per cent, while the other group held 9.56 per cent of the total transaction.

The finance group was able to capture 2.15 per cent and the manufacturing group had 0.63 per cent. The development banks group had a 0.56 per cent, 0.33 per cent by trading and the hotel group had a mere 0.08 per cent share.

In terms of maximum number of transactions, Siddhartha Bank Ltd topped the race this week with 265 transactions. But, Bank of Kathmandu outshone others to have the largest number of share units and value traded for the week.