Kathmandu, August 11

Due to the stockbrokers manipulating the share market, the country’s sole secondary bourse has not been able to witness any gains in the recent past, as per share market analysts. They also claim that brokers have been doing all they can to hide their weaknesses.

And in a way to justify the claim made by analysts, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index went down by 0.89 per cent or 10.68 points in the trading week between August 5 and 9.

“The broker companies are hiding the actual trade data and thus their weakness. At present, the number of investors in the secondary market is very low and the brokers are themselves placing ‘sell’ and ‘buy’ orders to give an illusion that trade is taking place through their companies,” said Prakash Rajhaure, an independent stock analyst.

According to Rajhaure, broker companies have been given the facility to avail loans of up to Rs 50 million from banks and financial institutions without pledging any collateral. “So, what they are doing is buying shares of some reputed companies themselves and then selling them later,” he added.

“If they stopped doing this, the market would be able to show its actual trend and it could pick up after dropping to a certain level,” stated Rajhaure.

The benchmark index opened on Sunday at 1,191.31 points and by the end of the trading day it had lost 1.43 points to close at 1,189.88 points. The Nepse index continued its downward trend on Monday and Tuesday dropping 0.21 point to 1,189.67 points and 1.46 points to 1,188.21 points, respectively. Similarly, the local bourse dipped further on Wednesday going down by 0.89 point to 1,187.32 points and shed 6.69 points on Thursday to close the week at 1,180.63 points.

The sensitive index also went down by 0.80 per cent or 2.02 points to 249.13 points and the float index too declined

by 0.91 per cent or 0.78 point to 84.78 points.

In the review period, trading, hotels, others and development bank subgroups witnessed some gains while the remaining

subgroups landed in the red zone.

The trading sub-index led the pack of gainers, increasing by 2.14 per cent or 4.22 points to rest at 200.91 points. This was due to Salt Trading Corporation’s share price rising by Rs 10 to Rs 280. Similarly, the hotels subgroup ascended by 2.01 per cent or 36.49 points to 1,844.94 points with the share price of Soaltee gaining eightrupees to Rs 248.

The others subgroup also expanded by 0.70 per cent or 5.01 points to land at 712.59 points. Nepal Telecom’s share price went up by six rupees to Rs 726. Likewise, development banks sub-index rose by 0.25 per cent or 3.56 points to 1,417.17 points.

Meanwhile, the life insurance sub-index was the biggest loser, decreasing by 2.99 per cent or 178.11 points to 5,771.4 points. This was due to Nepal Life Insurance’s share price declining by Rs 44 to Rs 967.

The manufacturing subgroup also went down by 2.47 per cent or 54.78 points to 2,158.32 points. The share price of Unilever Nepal decreased by Rs 990 to Rs 24,010.

Similarly, the hydropower sub-index dipped by 1.70 per cent or 24.36 points to land at 1,406.57 points and the non-life insurance subgroup descended by 1.61 per cent or 94.24 points to rest at 5,755.81 points.

Meanwhile, the microfinance sub-index went down by 1.44 per cent or 22.12 points to rest at 1,508.88 points.

The finance subgroup also shed 0.81 per cent or 4.94 points to 603.16 points. This was due to ICFC Finance’s share price dropping by eight rupees to Rs 158. Likewise, the banking sub-index fell by 0.78 per cent or 7.99 points to land at 1,009.82 points. The share price of Standard Chartered Bank dropped by Rs 23 to Rs 729.

Altogether, 3.64 million shares of 181 companies worth Rs 918.73 million were traded through 16,370 transactions during the week. The traded amount was 14.68 per cent lower than the total weekly turnover of the previous week, which was recorded at Rs 1.08 billion. In the past week, 4.08 million shares of 181 companies had changed hands through 15,310 transactions.

In the review period, Progressive Finance took the lead in weekly turnover with Rs 59.04 million and also led in terms of trading volume with 585,000 units of its shares changing hands. In terms of number of transactions, Nepal Life Insurance Company was at the top with 877 transactions.

Nepal Life Insurance Company with Rs 41.83 million, First Microfinance Development Bank with Rs 30.6 million, Chhimek Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha with Rs 30.21 million and Sanima Mai Hydropower with Rs 24.62 million rounded up the top five companies in terms of weekly turnover.