Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, May 29:

Propelled by healthy trading, stock trading at the country’s sole secondary market — Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) continued last week’s trend of a marginal growth. As a result, Nepse index went up by 1.46 points against last week’s growth of 0.33 point. According to Nepal Stock Exchange Ltd (NSEL), the index went up to 207.04 points on Friday, from the opening 205.58 points on Monday. The group-wise analysis reveals that the commercial bank group lead in overall growth of the stock market, while the manufacturing, the insurance and the development bank groups, too, gained in their respective indices. The sole loser is the finance group whereas three groups remained constant throughout the week. The index of the commercial bank group, the largest scrip in the secondary market, gained by 1.86 points, against last week’s marginal growth of less than one point. The index of the group went up to 209.37 points from the opening 207.51 points on Monday. The index of the manufacturing group, which had remained constant last week went up by a 2.74 points and closed at 250.43 points.

Likewise, the Nepse indices of the insurance group and the development group climbed up to 244.52 points and 188.50 points respectively on the closing day, from the opening 244.37 points and 187.73 points on Monday respectively. Both the groups had lost last week. However, only the finance group suffered loss this week, albeit marginally. The index of the group closed down at 193.46 points from the opening 193.50 points on Monday. The trading group, the other group and the hotel group, however, remained constant throughout the week at 95.01 points, 143.94 points and 178.85 points respectively.

Like the previous weeks, the commercial bank group dominated the Nepse floor as it captured the largest chunk of the total share trading. It captured 89.55 per cent of the total trading followed by the finance group at 5.79 per cent. While, the insurance group was in the third position with 4.41 per cent market share and the development bank group cornered 0.14 per cent.

The manufacturing group and the hotel group contributed 0.07 per cent and 0.03 per cent respectively. With the growth in the Nepse index, weekly trading market capitalisation, number of transaction as well as share units almost doubled this week. A total of 370,990 share units valued at Rs 55,732,582 were traded through 5921 transactions, against last week’s trading of 185,917 shares through 3,518 transactions at Rs 29,864,051. Meanwhile, out of 62 listed companies only 45 companies saw transaction during the five-day trading during this week.

Laxmi Bank Ltd, this week, too, was the front-runner for weekly trading in all aspects of largest number of transaction, share units and traded monetary value. A total of 289,982 shares of the bank worth Rs 36,716,310 were traded through 4,681 transactions during the week. The bank was the front-runner last week, too. The Nepse floor remained open for all five working days, where shares of Himalayan Bank Ltd, Nepal SBI Bank, Everest Bank Ltd, Bank of Kathmandu, NIC Bank Ltd and Laxmi Bank Ltd were traded throughout the week.