KATHMANDU, JUNE 30

The Nepal Stock Exchange surged by 6.06 per cent (72.05 points) to land at 1,260.75 points today that market analysts say is the result of the government softening its stance on black money being invested in the secondary market.

“The government’s move aims to soften the blow caused by the coronavirus pandemic. It has paved the way for legitimising ill-gotten money through share market,” an investor said, adding there was no other logic behind the bull run today.

Today, the market witnessed three positive circuit breakers one after the other in a span of two hours, after which trading was suspended for the rest of the day.

The first circuit breaker was applied at 11:48am for 20 minutes when Nepse surged by four per cent (49.02) points to 1,236.28 points. The second circuit breaker was applied at 12:17pm, just nine minutes after the market reopened as it shot up by five per cent (61.32 points) to 1,248.58 points.

And it took only two minutes for the market to suspend trading for the rest of the day after it resumed at 12:58pm when it immediately rose six per cent at 1:00pm to close at 1,260.75 points.

The sensitive index also went up by 6.1 per cent (15.63 points) to 271.92 points and float index also gained 6.38 per cent or 5.33 points to 88.86 points today.

The total turnover amount stood at Rs 227.21 million, which was achieved through trade of 489,537 units of shares of 134 listed firms through 2,919 transactions.

Among all the subgroups, only hotels and mutual fund landed in the red zone. The hotels subgroup plunged by 3.13 per cent to 1,482.41 points, while mutual fund dropped by 0.33 per cent to land at 9.59 points.

Life insurance was the highest gainer of the day, surging by 9.41 per cent (634.98) points to 7,382.04 points. Likewise, trading sub-index went up by 8.32 per cent to 856.12 points.

Similarly, banking subgroup expanded by 7.25 per cent to 1,090 points and non-life insurance accelerated by 5.88 per cent to 5,336.94 points.

Meanwhile, the manufacturing subgroup rose by 4.9 per cent to 2,615.80 points and hydropower sub-index was up by 4.49 per cent to 926.1 points.

Development banks subgroup ascended by 4.04 per cent to 1,690.33 points and microfinance gained 3.95 per cent to 2,046.62 points.

The others subgroup also went up by 3.62 per cent to 685.79 points and finance sub-index ticked up by 0.8 per cent to 630.11 points.

Among the top gainers, share price of six companies, including Citizen Investment Trust, Asian Life Insurance, Surya Life Insurance, Nepal Life Insurance Co, National Life Insurance Co and Shivam Cements surged by the maximum daily limit of 10 per cent to close at Rs 2,277, Rs 539, Rs 396, Rs 1,177, Rs 572 and Rs 550, respectively.

Among the top losers, share value of Nepal Reinsurance Company descended by 9.94 per cent to Rs 334, Oriental Hotels dropped by 9.73 per cent to Rs 306 and Sanima Equity Fund fell by 3.89 per cent to Rs 8.40.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on July 1, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.