Kathmandu, March 18

The domestic share market did not witness any massive volatility in the week of March 12 to 16, with the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index edging up by 9.81 points or 0.73 per cent to 1,357.34 points.

The country’s only secondary market remained closed on Sunday as the country celebrated Holi festival. Starting the week on Monday at 1,347.53 points, the benchmark index had gone up by 7.7 points by the day’s closing. The optimism could not sustain, however, as the Nepse index dropped by 8.14 points the very next day. The local bourse reversed course on Wednesday by going up 9.04 points and edged up by 1.21 points on Thursday to close the week above the psychological level of 1,350 points.

The sensitive index, which gauges the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, rose by 2.1 points or 0.71 per cent to 294.83 points. Likewise, the float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded also went up by 0.61 point or 0.61 per cent to 100.05 points.

Altogether, 3.85 million shares of 156 companies that amounted to Rs 1.79 billion were traded through 12,759 transactions during the week. The traded amount was 22.09 per cent less than the preceding week when 18,533 transactions of 4.58 million shares of 156 firms worth Rs 2.30 billion had been undertaken. It has to be noted, however, that the share market had remained open for normal five days in the previous week.

Whereas trading remained steady at 206.16 points, hotels was the only subgroup to record loss in the review period.

The insurance subgroup retained its top position among the gainers by surging 173.59 points or 2.85 per cent to 6,263.21 points. Trailing close behind, hydropower rose by 44.56 points or 2.79 per cent to 1,643.89 points.

The gain posted by the remainder of the gainers was less than one per cent.

Banking — the share market heavyweight — inched up 3.64 points or 0.28 per cent to 1,286.04 points. Development banks subgroup increased by 3.99 points or 0.27 per cent to 1,473.13 points. Manufacturing went up by 13.72 points or 0.63 per cent to 2,181.11 points.

Finance edged up by 3.32 points or 0.54 per cent to 616.88 points. Others added 2.61 points or 0.40 per cent to land at 654.51 points.

Hotels, which was among the top gainers in the preceding week, saw some of its gains wiped out as the sub-index fell 14.23 points or 0.79 per cent to 1,792.94 points.

Meanwhile, Nepal Investment Bank (Promoter) secured the top position in terms of trading volume and turnover with 5,480,000 of its shares changing hands that amounted to Rs 308.54 million. The other companies to make it to the list of top five in terms of traded amount were National Life Insurance with Rs 109.42 million, Nepal Credit and Commerce Bank with Rs 102.21 million, Global IME Bank with Rs 88.92 million and Asian Life Insurance with Rs 78.15 million.

With regard to number of transactions, Nepal Credit and Commerce Bank was the forerunner with 821 transactions recorded in its name during the review period.