Kathmandu, February 2

The bull run being witnessed in the country’s only secondary market continued for the third trading day of the week, with the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index recording a fresh all-time high of 1,240.07 points today.

Lack of other profitable investment avenues due to supply disruptions owing to the ongoing agitation in the Tarai has attracted investors. Moreover, falling deposit and lending rates have also made investing in stocks a relatively profitable venture at present, as per stock brokers.

Compared to yesterday’s surge of 1.42 per cent, or 17.32 points, the gain today was, however, relatively muted. The benchmark index inched up 0.17 per cent or 2.05 points by today’s closing.

Opening at yesterday’s close of 1,238.02 points, the Nepse index had surged as high as 1,248.71 points during mid-day trading before sliding back to as low as 1,237.33 points. However, the market moved up again to clock a new record by the time of closing.

Manufacturing and trading subgroups held steady at 1,895.36 points and 201.38 points, respectively. Meanwhile, hotels and insurance were the only two subgroups that wound up in the red today.

Contrary to yesterday, when the hydropower subgroup was the only subgroup to witness a loss, the subgroup rose 0.22 per cent to 2,143.03 points today. This was on the back of share value of Ridi Hydropower — the top gainer of the day — surging by Rs 35 or 9.89 per cent to Rs 389. Similarly, Chilime and Sanima Mai both rose by four rupees each to Rs 1,285 and Rs 860, respectively.

Nepal Telecom’s share price rose by four rupees to Rs 684, which in turn helped the others subgroup advance 0.59 per cent to 803.58 points.

The sub-index of development banks went up by 0.41 per cent to 1,241.66 points. This was due to stock price of development banks like Alpine and Biratlaxmi — both among the top five gainers of the day — up Rs 40 to Rs 449 and Rs 31 to Rs 378, respectively.

Finance added 0.33 per cent to 599.48 points, while banking was up 0.13 per cent to 1,133.67 points.

On the other hand, hotels dropped 0.88 per cent to 1,808.19 points, weighed down by Oriental down Rs 15 to Rs 455, Soaltee down two rupees to Rs 340 and Taragaon Regency down one rupee to Rs 222.

Insurance managed to limit its loss to 0.05 per cent to rest at 5,452.12 points.

The sensitive index rose 0.2 per cent to 267.40 points. Similarly, the float index also went up 0.15 per cent to 88.82 points.

Altogether, 1,014,148 shares of 111 companies that amounted to Rs 560.38 million were traded through 2,990 transactions today.