Kathmandu, March 28

The bull run in the secondary market continued for the ninth consecutive day, with the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index surging by over five per cent today, which prompted the market regulator to apply circuit breaker for the first time since the start of this year.

Opening at 1,533.83 points today, the regulator had applied the first circuit breaker within the first half hour as the benchmark index had surged by three per cent.

The second circuit breaker was applied around 1:00pm, when the Nepse index rose by four per cent.

The final circuit breaker was applied around 2:00pm, when the local bourse gained five per cent and operation was suspended for the day.

Today’s closing of 1,610.62 points was nearly a four-month high. The last time Nepse had closed at this level was in November.

The sensitive index, which gauges the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, rose by 17.02 points or 5.1 per cent to 350.50 points.

Likewise, the float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded also went up by 5.96 points or 5.22 per cent to 120.08 points.

Stockbrokers have attributed the current bullish trend as seasonal as well as the result of the positive political cues.

Apart from manufacturing and trading subgroups, which remained constant at 2,181.56 points and 206.16 points, respectively, all the remaining subgroups witnessed gains.

Insurance subgroup led the pack of gainers, surging by 503.11 points or 6.77 per cent to 7,933.38 points. Advancing by 38.94 points or 5.64 per cent, finance subgroup rested at 729.38 points. Hydropower rose by 106.51 points or 5.34 per cent to 2,101.27 points. Banking, the share market heavyweight, ascended by 75.09 points or 5.21 per cent to 1,517.67 points.

Development banks climbed 82.97 points or 4.83 per cent to 1,799.26 points. Hotels was up 71.09 points or 3.46 per cent to 2,125.14 points. With a rise of 10.12 points or 1.5 per cent, others landed at 683.71 points.

Altogether, nearly 2.60 million shares of 144 companies worth Rs 1.39 billion were traded through 8,469 transactions today.

Among the top gainers today were Butwal Power Co, Gurans Life Insurance, Sagarmatha Insurance, Mount Makalu Development Bank, Kalika Microcredit Development Bank and Prudential Insurance. The share value of the aforementioned firms rose by 10 per cent today.

Only three listed firms witnessed loss today — NMB Microfinance Bittiya Sanstha (down 1.95 per cent), Jebils Finance (down 1.6 per cent) and Kisan Microfinance Bittiya Sanstha (down 0.04 per cent).