KATHMANDU, JANUARY 3

The country’s sole secondary market set a new record on the first trading day of 2021, with the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index surging by 4.22 per cent or 88.12 points to sail past the psychological threshold of 2,100 points today.

Opening at the previous week’s close of 2,087.28 points, the benchmark index was mostly northbound throughout the trading period today.

The sensitive index, which measures the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, rose by 4.31 per cent or 17.18 points to 415.88 points. The float index that gauges the performance of shares actually traded went up by 4.1 per cent or 5.82 points to 147.74 points.

All the subgroups landed in the green today, with trading leading the gainers with the surge of 9.64 per cent or 221.57 points to 2,520.67 points.

However, life insurance was forerunner in terms of points gained, with sub-index soaring by 550.95 points or 4.09 per cent to 14,022.48 points.

A total of 14.03 million shares of 212 listed companies were traded through 54,698 transactions that amounted to Rs 6.34 billion today.

The share value of Himalayan Distillery and Salt Trading Corporation surged by daily limit of 10 per cent to Rs 3,872 and Rs 6,909, respectively, today.

The share price of Radhi Bidyut Company Ltd fell the most today — 4.29 per cent — to Rs 290.

Nepal Life Insurance Co had the highest turnover today, Rs 509.57 million; Prime Commercial Bank topped the chart in terms of trading volume and number of transactions, with 1.12 million of its shares traded through 3,104 transactions.