Kathmandu, March 21:

The investors are still feeling jittery as the Nepse — the sole secondary market — index did not show any encouraging sign this week too.

Of the nine-sub group indices, trading and manufacturing groups did not see any trading of their scrips this week. Three — hydropower, hotel and others — groups gained while remaining four — development banks, insurance companies, finance companies and commercial banks — groups lost.

The news of 35 per cent cash dividend by Chilime Hydro power and 25 per cent cash dividend by Nepal Telecomm (NT) has tried to boost the confidence of investors as the hydro power and others group gained this week by an impressive 49.79 points to 887.86 points and 2.35 points to 640.32 points. Similarly hotels group also gained 5.82 points to 352.88 points.

But the development banks group lost by a whopping 48.28 points to 909.81 points, insurance companies group lost by 20.33 points to 661.14 points, finance companies group lost by 13.43 points to 779.12 points and commercial banks group lost by 0.46 point to end at 656.36 points.

The five-day session trading of this week started in red with a marginal 0.03 point loss on Sunday from the opening of 176.90 points. Monday witnessed further slid of 0.42 point to 176.45 points.

The slow downward slide continued on Tuesday too as the Nepse lost 0.39 point to 176.06 points.

However, the Nepse tried to bounce back by gaining a marginal 0.12 point to 176.18 points. The last day of the trading in the domestic market, on Thursday, the secondary market lost 0.37 point to close the market at 175.81 points.

The 78-scrip sensitive index — considered blue chip shares in the domestic market - lost 1.09 points to drop to 175.81 points from Sunday’s opening of 176.90 points. Similarly, the float index — calculated on the basis of real transactions — also lost 0.28 point to drop to 65.03 points from Sunday’s opening of 65.31 points.

However, the transaction amount for this week increased by 6.40 per cent to Rs 293.93 million from last week’s Rs 276.25 million. Group-A companies gained their dominance back in the total transaction as they contributed to 73.28 per cent against last week’s 48.53 per cent.

This week’s top performers were Siddhartha Development Bank (with Rs 44.96 million), Bank of Kathmandu (with

Rs 24.01 million), Nepal SBI Bank (with Rs 17.32 million), United Finance (with Rs 17.11 million) and Annapurna

Development Bank (with Rs 16.04 million).

Will it won’t it ?

KATHMANDU: Finance minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai on Thursday visited the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) for the first time since he became the finance minister to boost the confidence of investors. He has been blamed for not being serious in the development of capital market that could be a wheel to change in the small economy like Nepal. Dr Bhattarai, during the visit, said that government was committed to the development of the capital market as it is key to industrialisation. Will his assurance boost the investors’ confidence or not next week’s performance might make it clear. — HNS