Kathmandu, February 2

As investor confidence has been steadily rising in recent days due to the positive signs from the government to promote the country’s sole secondary market, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index has consequently been on a bullish trend since the last few weeks. Keeping with this trend the Nepse index surged by 1.60 per cent or 21.26 points to cross the threshold of 1,340 points after nearly 20 months to 1,346.64 points today.

The last time the index had closed at the 1,340-point mark was on May 17, 2018.

Share investors’ confidence can be attributed to numerous reasons including seasonal factors despite some problems of liquidity to invest in the secondary market. The share investors’ sentiment had earlier been boosted after Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada had hinted that the government would support the secondary market.

Radha Pokharel, chairperson of Nepal Puzibazar Laganikarta Sangh, said that the market had been on an upsurge due to the investors’ positive sentiment and confidence.

“The market is on a bullish run, hence investors are investing more money in the market.”

As a result, the sensitive index, which measures the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, today rose by 1.77 per cent or 4.99 points to 286.75 points.

The float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded also went up by 1.69 per cent or 1.59 points to 95.65 points.

Apart from trading and life insurance subgroups, all the sub-indices witnessed gains today.

Among the gainers, one subgroup increased by more than two per cent and four ascended by more than one per cent with the remaining gainers rising by less than one per cent.

Banking — subgroup with the highest weightage in the stock market — soared by 2.35 per cent or 27.04 points to 1,175.96 points. It was followed by manufacturing, which advanced by 1.94 per cent or 47.78 points to 2,513.93 points.

Meanwhile, non-life insurance went up by 1.72 per cent or 101.52 points to 6,002.96 points. Likewise, development banks subgroup increased by 1.59 per cent or 28.32 points to 1,809.78 points and microfinance subgroup rose by one per cent or 22.13 points to 2,229.70 points.

However, trading subgroup shed 0.08 per cent or 0.62 point to 785.91 points and life insurance dropped by 0.01 per cent or 1.09 points to 7,557.44 points.

Altogether, 5.35 million shares of 175 companies were traded through 20,635 transactions that amounted to Rs 2.07 billion today.

Grameen Bikas Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha saw the highest gain with its share price rising by 9.93 per cent to close at Rs 498. Similarly, Naya Nepal Laghubitta Bikas Bank’s share also surged by 9.89 per cent to Rs 789 and Mithila Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha went up by 9.88 per cent to close at Rs 801.

Among the top losers were Guheshwori Merchant Bank and Finance whose share price fell by 5.03 per cent to Rs 132 and Synergy Power Development that dropped by 4.72 per cent to Rs 101.