Kathmandu, September 20:

After a brief bullish trend, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index lost lost 38.70 points to hit a low of 1028.50 on the closing day. This week it was worse, with Nepse hitting 1004.28 points depsite a gain of 8.19 points.

The market opened at a low of 996.09 points. On Monday, it dropped to 976.01 points though it scrambled to 985.16 points on Tuesday and further increased to 1004.28 points by garnering an increment of 8.19 points in comparison to the first day of the week. The sensitive index also increased by 2.33 points to 261.27 points while the opening sensitive index was 258.94 and last week’s closing was 269.

Bank of Kathmandu (with Rs 86.97 million), Nepal Credit and Commerce Bank (with Rs 32.87 million), Laxmi Bank (with Rs 29.69 million), Kist Merchant Banking and Finance (with Rs26.74 million) and Nepal Telecom Company (with 20.55 million), were this week’s top performers. Shares of 78 of the total listed companies were traded at Nepse. There was no transaction of government bonds or debentures at Nepse this week.

This week, Bank of Kathmandu traded shares worth Rs 869 million to become the largest company in terms of volume of transactions while NIC Bank traded the largest number of shares in terms of transactions (71,000) and Infrastructure Development Bank led the Nepse floor trading in terms of number of transactions (270).