Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, March 19:

The bullish trend at the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) finally came to end after two months, when it dropped by by over four points this week. Weekly share trading analysis reveals that major groups, including the commercial bank, manufacturing, other and development bank groups at the secondary market failed to continue previous weeks’ growth trends. This led to a fall in the overall Nepse index. The Nepse index that started at 278.50 points at the beginning of the week went down to 274.35 points at the close of the stock market. It had gained by over one point last week and about 11 points a week before that. According to Nepal Stock Exchange Ltd, the total weekly transaction value also decreased along with the fall in the index. This week’s total transaction value stood at Rs 54,483,265 from 2,374 transactions of 17,6034 share units. However, last week the total trading value was Rs 79,729,070 through 2,398 transactions of 247,558 shares.

Among the gainers, the hotel group registered a growth of 1.15 points. The group’s index reached 173.78 points from the opening of 172.63 points on Monday. The group had lost ground last week. The trading group, which had remained static for the last couple weeks, gained a 4.18 points on weekly trading index. The Nepse index of the group went up to 111.04 points from an opening of 106.86 points. Continuing last week’s trend, Nepse index of the insurance group moved up to 247.15 points from 244.04 points. The group had recorded growth last week, too. Though it had failed to record growth last week, the finance group’s index bounced back and settled at 209.77 points from the opening 208.84 points. However, the commercial bank group, the manufacturing group, the other group and the development bank group all performed badly.

The Nepse index of the commercial bank group, which is the largest scrip at the country’s sole secondary market, suffered a loss of 4.93 points. The index opened at 304.07 points on Monday and went down to 2,999 points at the weekend. The group had gained last week.

The other group suffered most, as its index plummeted by over 22 points in the week. The group had opened at 338.80 points on Monday but landed at 316.58 points on the closing day. The group had remained constant last week. The manufacturing and development bank group both suffered a marginal loss. These groups’ indices closed at 275.69 points and 210.32 points from the opening of 276.08 points and 212.66 points respectively. The commercial bank group continued to dominate the Nepse floor as it captured the largest chunk of the total share trading. The group captured 88.68 per cent of the total share trading, followed by the finance group 5.19 per cent. The trading group was in the third position with 2.37 per cent.

The insurance group contributed 2.25 per cent, the development bank group cornered 0.64 per cent and the other group had a share of 0.57 per cent. The manufacturing group shared 0.25 per cent, while the hotel group had a mere 0.05 per cent share. Lumbini Bank Ltd topped the race as the single largest trader in terms of number of transactions, share units and monetary value. A total of 51,360 shares of the bank were traded through 617 transactions at Rs 10,289,320. The Nepse floor remained open for all five working days of the week, where the shares of Nabil Bank, Nepal Investment Bank, Himalayan Bank, Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Everest Bank, Bank of Kathmandu, Machhapuchre Bank, Laxmi Bank, Kumari Bank, Lumbini Bank, NIC Bank and Life Insurance Company were traded throughout the week.