Kathmandu, May 7

After witnessing four weeks of bull run, the secondary market reversed course on negative political developments, with the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index dipping by 1.78 points or 0.12 per cent during the trading week of May 2 to 5.

Since Sunday was a public holiday, the secondary market opened on Monday with the benchmark index at 1,464.91 points. It advanced by 9.56 points to a fresh all-time high of 1,474.47 points by the day’s closing. The local bourse adopted correction mode on Tuesday, as Nepse dipped 2.52 points by the day’s closing. News and speculations of change in the government further weighed on investor sentiment, as the benchmark index shed another 3.84 points on Wednesday and 4.98 points on Thursday.

Altogether, 5.01 million shares of 144 companies that amounted to Rs 3.19 billion were traded through 14,799 transactions during the week. The traded amount was 30.65 per cent lower than the preceding week when 20,464 transactions of 6.93 million scrips of 141 firms worth nearly Rs 4.60 billion had been undertaken.

The sensitive index, which gauges the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, dipped 0.1 per cent to 316.96 points. Likewise, the float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded also shed 0.10 per cent to 105.6 points.

Whereas trading remained constant at 201.38 points, development banks, finance, hydropower, others and manufacturing subgroups landed in the red during the week.

Hotels gained 1.16 per cent to 1,940.8 points. Even as Oriental’s share value dived by Rs 29 to Rs 496 and Taragaon’s plunged by Rs 34 to Rs 230, the loss was offset by Soaltee’s up by Rs 14 to Rs 367.

Adding to the previous week’s rise of 2.95 per cent, insurance subgroup went up by 0.43 per cent to 6,569.46 points.

The subgroup of commercial banks barely managed to land in the green zone, with the sub-index nudging up 0.11 per cent to 1,387.33 points.

Meanwhile, development banks declined by 1.32 per cent to 1,445.98 points. Share value of Chhimek was down Rs 68 to Rs 1990 and Swabalamban down Rs 94 to Rs 2,605, among others.

Finance and hydropower continued their losing streaks by dipping 0.72 per cent to 713.68 points and down 0.67 per cent to 2,243.45 points, respectively.

Nepal Telecom’s stock price dropped by three rupees to Rs 651, which in turn dragged the others subgroup down 0.46 per cent to 764.81 points.

After leading the pack of gainers in the previous week, the manufacturing subgroup slipped by 0.15 per cent to 2,350.61 points, weighed down by the stock price of Unilever Nepal dropping by Rs 70 to Rs 35,280.

Everest Bank took the lead in terms of turnover with Rs 247.01 million, followed by Nepal Bangladesh Bank with Rs 161.17 million, NIC Asia Bank with Rs 140.15 million, Nepal Investment Bank with Rs 136.39 million and Nepal Bank with Rs 132.12 million.

Siddhartha Investment Growth Scheme-I was the forerunner in terms of number of shares traded, with 569,000 of its scrips changing hands. Nepal Bangladesh Bank recorded the most number of transactions — 702.