Nepse dips below 1,400 points after nine months

Kathmandu, December 31

The continuous fall has brought the country’s sole secondary market index below 1,400 points after nine months. The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index closed at 1,390.58 points today, which is the lowest figure after March 20.

The Nepse index plunged by 24.20 points or 1.71 per cent to 1,390.58 points on the last day of the calendar year 2017. Along with Nepse index, sensitive index also fell by 1.85 per cent or 5.5 points to 292.12 points and float index dropped by 1.44 points or 1.42 per cent to 99.9 points during the four-hour trading period.

The benchmark index opened at 1414.78 points and plunged to 1,382.44 points at 1 pm. However, after a slight correction the market went up slightly to end the day at 1,390.58 points. Besides the hotels group, all the remaining nine sub-indices landed in red zone.

The sub-index of commercial banks dropped by 16.35 points or 1.36 per cent to 1,189.19 points, while the trading group decreased by 4.39 points or 2.24 per cent and closed at 191.98 points. Similarly, the others sector closed at 773.36 points, decreasing by 55.81 points or 6.73 per cent.

The microfinance sector too plunged by 37.52 points or 2.18 per cent to 1,681.73 points and the sub-index of development banks dropped by 16.77 points or 1.05 per cent to 1,579.62 points.

Likewise, sub-index of insurance sector fell by 83.9 points or 1.15 per cent to 7,212.23 points and hydropower sector dropped by 12.26 points or 0.64 per cent to 1,906.44 points. Similarly, the finance sector plunged by 3.21 points or 0.44 per cent to 725.27 points and the manufacturing sector plummeted by eight points or 0.32 per cent to 2,495.76 points.

However, the hotels sector gained 4.88 points or 0.23 per cent to 2091.73 points.

A total of 1,825,182 unit shares of 158 listed firms worth Rs 587.83 million changed hands through 5,484 transactions today. NCC Bank (Promoter) topped the list in terms of turnover and most number of shares traded. A total of 484,808 unit shares of NCC Bank, worth Rs 96.96 million, were traded today and its last trading price was Rs 200 per unit.