Kathmandu, August 31:

Propelled by commercial banks, development banks and others group, Nepal Stock Exchange (Nespe) index today touched a record 1175.38 points. It gained 55.73 points or 4.98 per cent — yet another record in a single day’s trading — to 1175.38 points from

last week’s closing of 1119.65 points.

“It is the highest growth in a single day’s trading,” said Rewat Bahadur Karki, general manager of Nepse.

The market today halted twice — first, for 15 minutes and again, for half an hour — as it witnessed a three per cent rise in the first hour of the trading and a four per cent rise afterwards. Nepse has brought the new rule of market halt based on per cent change upwards or downwards — instead of point-based — after it listed the largest ever listing of Nepal Telecom’s (NT) 1,50,00,000-unit of shares.

The others group that used to see no trading for months are the market propeller, at present, because of the NT shares. Though the market has been witnessing growth after NT’s entry in the secondary market, today others also contributed to the growth.

All groups except hydropower posted a rise in their indices. Hydropower group lost 7.83 points or 0.63 per cent to 1236.62 points from last week’s closing.

Commercial banks posted a robust growth of 38.44 points or 3.69 per cent to 1078.86 points, after a couple of weeks. Development banks group also posted 14.91 points or 0.99 per cent to 1518.74 points. However, the winner was the group of others that gained 143.31 points or 9.96 per cent to 1582.37 points due to the trading of 34,910-unit of NT shares.

The sensitive index also rose by 7.7 points, or 2.86 per cent to 276.8 points, from last week’s closing.

Meanwhile, though Nepse has changed the market halt rule it has not yet changed market calculation system nor instituted the floating index — two factors that are not reflecting the true face of the capital market. Market capitalisation has increased to Rs 6.12 trillion from last trading’s Rs 5.83 trillion. It is yet another record that in a single day Rs 0.29 trillion market capitalisation increased. But the phenomenon is not real and needs immediate correction. Nepse should start calculating market capitalisation of only tradable shares. The NT shares that the government holds and promoters’ shares of other companies that are not tradable should be excluded while calculating the market capitalisation.

“It’s time Nepse introduce floating index and a new system of calculating market capitalisation,” said shares analyst Rabindra Bhattarai.