Kathmandu, August 26 :

Due to weak performance of commercial banks group, stock trading at Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) this week registered a fall in Nepse index by 4.86 points. After a month of uncertainties, the stock trading had somehow stabilised last week.

The share prices of commercial banks continued to decline this week too resulting a fall in overall Nepse index. the Nepse had recovered with over 27 points a week before the last week. This week trading began at 384.79 points on Monday and constantly dropped to land at 379.93 points on the closing day.

According to Nepse, a total of 100,455 units of shares worth over Rs 47.2 million were traded through 1,394 transactions this week, against last week’s trading of 178,343 shares from 1,549 transactions at Rs 64.5 million. Of the 61 listed companies for share trading, 47 companies saw their transaction this week.

The weekly trading report shows that out of eight groups, two major groups witnessed loss and three groups registered growth in their respective indices, while three groups’ index remained constant.

The commercial banks group, which is the largest scrip by volume at Nepse, suffered a loss of 7.73 points. The group’s index opened at 429.64 points and landed at 421.91 points, when the market closed on Thursday. The group had lost by over seven points last week too. The other groups lost 4.81 points, as its index settled at 418.93 points on the closing day. The group, which had suffered a marginal loss last week, began its trading at 423.74 points.

On other hand, the finance and the insurance groups continued to register growth. The finance group’s index went up to 263.33 points from the opening 263.14 points, while the insurance group recorded a growth of 2.76 points. The group’s index began at 392.08 points and closed at 394.84 points on the closing day. The development banks group, which had suffered a loss of 2.24 points last week, recovered with an impressive growth of 9.91 points this week. The group’s trading began at 301.27 points on Monday and closed at 311.18 points.

The manufacturing group, the hotel group and the trading group, meanwhile, saw no changes in their indices and remained constant at 316.82 points, 179.62 points and 148.11 points respectively throughout the week.

The commercial banks group continued to dominate the Nepse floor by capturing a lion’s share. The group cornered 70.89 per cent trading, while the insurance group followed it with 13.59 per cent and the finance group had 12 per cent.

The other group was able to capture 1.83 per cent and the trading group had a mere 0.92 per cent.

In terms of maximum number of transactions and share units, Guheshwari Merchant Banking and Finance Ltd topped the race with 35,210 shares that exchanged hands through 614 transactions. But, Kumari Bank Ltd outshone others with the largest monetary value traded for the week that stood at Rs 7.4 million.

The Nepse floor remained open for four days under regular lot, where the shares of Nabil Bank Ltd, Himalayan Bank Ltd, Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Everest Bank Ltd, Bank of Kathmandu, NIC Bank, Machhapuchhre Bank, Kumari Bank, Siddhartha Bank, Development Credit Bank and Nepal Sri Lanka Merchant Bank were traded throughout the week.