Kathmandu, March 10

Buoyant investors snapped up shares of insurance firms, hydropower companies and development banks today, resulting in the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index to close at a fresh all-time high.

The country’s only secondary market had remained closed from Monday through Wednesday for public holidays. The benchmark index, which had opened at a previous fresh high of 1,306.54 points recorded by the time the market closed on Sunday, had surged by 11.49 points or 0.88 per cent to rest at 1,318.03 points today.

Manufacturing and trading subgroups held steady at 1,998.78 points and 201.38 points, respectively. While finance and others subgroups landed in the red, the remaining subgroups saw gains.

Today’s market rally was led by the insurance subgroup, as the sub-index soared by 3.26 per cent to 5,893.52 points. Insurance companies like Premier, NLG, Everest and Sagarmatha had secured seven of the 10 spots among the top

gainers today.

Hydropower and development banks were almost neck-and-neck, with the subgroups up 2.49 per cent to 2,298.98 points and 2.42 per cent to 1,385.12 points, respectively.

Among the hydropower companies, Ridi saw its share value surge by Rs 41 to Rs 452, landing it among the top gainers.

Similarly, in terms of development banks, Mithila Laghubitta Bikas Bank rose by 9.99 per cent to Rs 2,521. Hence, it captured the eighth spot among the top 10 gainers.

Hotels and banking subgroups saw muted gains — inching up 0.69 per cent to 1,768.64 points and 0.16 per cent to 1,189.86 points, respectively.

Conversely, finance saw a drop of 1.25 per cent to 669.88 points, as short-term traders sought to book profits. Investors of Pokhara, United and Jebils were the top losers today.

Others subgroup also dipped 0.28 per cent to 822.37 points, weighed down by Nepal Telecom’s share price down two rupees to Rs 700.

The sensitive index, which gauges the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, rose 0.69 per cent to 283.60 points. Similarly, the float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded also went up 0.96 per cent to 95.04 points.

Altogether 4,041 transactions of 1,844,209 shares of 126 companies were undertaken today that amounted to Rs 966.76 million.