Kathmandu, February 4

The domestic market saw some massive swings in the week of January 29 to February 2, with the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index recording a week-on-week gain of 7.31 points or 0.53 per cent.

While the market remained closed on Sunday as the country observed Martyrs’ Day, the benchmark index opened at 1,375.14 points on Monday and plunged by 65.44 points by the time of closing. Stockbrokers attributed the selling pressure to the credit crunch in the market. The local bourse, however, added 16.9 points on Tuesday and surged by 63.23 points on Wednesday to more than recover the loss of the first day. The investors’ optimism on Wednesday was accredited to a possible way out to the credit crunch, as bankers held discussions with various stakeholders on the issue that day. On Thursday, nevertheless, Nepse index shed 7.38 points on profit-booking to close at 1,382.45 points for the week.

In total, 5.95 million shares of 156 companies worth Rs 2.21 billion were traded through 20,660 transactions during the week. The traded amount was 0.64 per cent lower than the preceding week when 19,360 transactions of 6.67 million shares of 155 firms that amounted to Rs 2.23 billion had been undertaken. It has to be noted, though, that the country’s only secondary market had remained open for normal five trading days in the past week against only four in the review period due to a public holiday.

The sensitive index, the marker for the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, edged up by 1.87 points or 0.63 per cent to 300.35 points. Likewise, the float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded also inched up by 0.73 point or 0.72 per cent to 102.46 points.

Whereas trading remained steady at 206.16 points, banking, development banks and manufacturing recorded some gains. The remaining subgroups wound up clocking losses during the review period.

Banking, the share market heavyweight, advanced by 24.69 points or 1.89 per cent to 1,333.23 points. Share value to commercial banks like Standard Chartered surged by 3.46 per cent to Rs 2,090 and of Nepal Investment rose by 3.47 per cent to Rs 685 and Everest went up by 1.32 per cent to Rs 1,763.

Development banks rose by 11.85 points or 0.82 per cent to 1,450.41 points on the back of Chhimek up 1.96 per cent to Rs 990 and stock price of Sana Kisan increasing by 2.63 per cent to Rs 975.

Adding to the previous week’s surge of 3.31 per cent, manufacturing subgroup inched up by 16.33 points or 0.76 per cent to 2,161.86 points. Even as Himalayan Distillery lost 2.36 per cent to close at Rs 620, the sub-index was buoyed due to Unilever Nepal advancing by 1.22 per cent to Rs 29,000.

At the other end of the spectrum, insurance subgroup continued its free fall with a dive of 225.24 points or 3.58 per cent to rest at 6,058.55 points. Stockholders of Nepal Life saw the value of their shares plunge by five per cent to Rs 2,375 and those of Life Insurance Co Nepal witnessed the share price close at Rs 2,287, down 1.8 per cent.

Finance dropped by 16.79 points or 2.56 per cent to 638.43 points, weighed down by Citizen Investment Trust witnessing a steep drop of 4.79 per cent to end at Rs 3,280.

The three remaining subgroups managed to limit their losses below one per cent — others was down 6.08 points or 0.86 per cent to 697.59 points, hotels dipped by 6.97 points or 0.39 per cent to 1,768.35 points and hydropower shed 3.02 points or 0.19 per cent to 1,617.9 points.

Meanwhile, Siddhartha Bank topped the chart in terms of weekly turnover with Rs 145.59 million, followed by Nepal Telecom with Rs 103.02 million, Nepal Life Insurance Co with Rs 102.30 million, Prabhu Bank with Rs 99.49 million and Sanima Bank with Rs 83.40 million.

NMB Sulav Investment Fund – I was forerunner in terms of trading volume with 831,000 of its scrips changing hands. Pertaining to number of transactions, Prabhu Bank retained its top position with 1,314 transactions.

Odd lot transaction

KATHMANDU: In a bid to further facilitate investors, Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) is allowing transactions of odd lot (less than 10 shares) during normal trading hours from Sunday. As per Nepse, a system has been put in place

so that the odd lot transactions neither affect the indices nor the market price. Until now, except for All or Non (AoN), all transactions carried out during normal trading hours — that is, from Sunday through Thursday between 11:00am and 3:00pm — were of broad lot (trading of minimum of 10 units of shares or in multiples of 10). Due to this, there was a problem of orders that were not divisible by 10 being cancelled.