Kathmandu, January 10:

Due to low investor confidence, shareholders of all major market propellers - commercial banks, development banks, finance companies and insurance companies groups except hydropower companies - lost this week too.

Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index plunged by 19.49 points to 674.32 points, justifying the claims of investors that they are losing confidence in the secondary market.

The new appointments in Securities Board of Nepal and Nespe could also not bring cheer to the market as Nepse witnessed a large fall of 7.97 points to 674.32 on Thursday from Wednesday’s closing of 682.29 points. The sole secondary market also witnessed a drop in transaction amount by 28.65 per cent to Rs 265.57 million - of 74 companies — against last week’s amount.

Nepse closed in the red zone in four of the five sessions this week. However, the market opened in green on Sunday at 696.21 points from last week’s closing of 693.81 points.

The commercial bank group went down to 646.94 points, development bank group to 1027.04 points, the finance companies group to 926.60 points and the insurance companies group to 675.75 points.

However, the hydropower companies group gain-ed 12 points to reach 916.24 points from 904.24 points, last week’s closing.

The sensitive index - a barometer of Group-A companies — plunged by 2.90 points to 177.02 points from last week’s closing of 179.92 points. Similarly, the float index - calculated on the basis of real transactions — lost 1.26 points to go to 65.60 points from last week’s closing of 66.86 points.