Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, February 26:

Led by a good performance of commercial bank group, share trading at the country’s sole secondary market Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) registered growth for yet another week. The Nepse index gained 1.81 points over the week.

The index that started at 263.72 points on Monday climbed up to close at 265.53 points on Friday. It had gained 6.69 points last week. Weekly share trading analysis reveals that moderate performance of major groups such as manufacturing, trading, finance and insurance joined the commercial bank group to push the index up.

However, the development group lost ground this week, while the other and hotel groups remained constant. The Nepse index of the commercial bank group, which is the largest scrip on the Nepse floor, opened at 279.30 points on Monday and climbed up to 281.74 points on the closing day. The group had gained last week, too.

The manufacturing group recorded a growth of 2.44 points on its index, as the Nepse index of the group closed at 276.50 points from the opening 274.39 points on Monday. The group had also gained last week.

The trading group, which has remained constant for the last couple of weeks, marked 3.86 points growth in its index. The Nepse index of the group went up to 102.21 points from the opening 98.87 points. The finance group and insurance group also registered growths with marginal increments in their index. The Nepse indices of these groups closed at 207.94 points and 239.17 points from the openings of 207.45 points and 238.73 points respectively. The finance group had gained, while the insurance group had lost last week. The development bank group is a sole loser this week. The group suffered a loss of 0.64 point, as its index dropped to 21.56 points on Friday from 213.20 points. The group had gained last week.

The other group and the hotel group, however, remained constant throughout the week at 354.67 points and 173.21 points respectively.

According to information released by Nepal Stock Exchange Ltd, the total weekly transaction value stood at Rs 72,088,661 this week from 2,523 transactions of 265,760 share units throughout the week. However, last week’s total trading value was Rs 74,048,487 through 2,406 transactions and 275,002 shares. Of the total listed 65 companies, 60 companies saw transactions this week. The commercial bank group continued to dominate the Nepse floor as it captured the largest chunk of the total share trading. It captured 71.80 per cent of the total trading, followed by the finance group with 12.07 per cent.

The insurance group was in the third position with 8.24 per cent of market share, whereas the trading bank group cornered 4.05 per cent and the other group contributed 2.08 per cent. The development bank group cornered 1.47 per cent and the manufacturing group had a share of 0.22 per cent, while the hotel group had a mere 0.07 per cent share of the total trading. Lumbini Bank Ltd topped the race as a single largest trader in terms of number of transactions with 980 transactions, while Cosmic Merchant Banking and Finance secured the first position for share units.

A total of 46,520 share units of the finance group were traded this week. Bank of Kathmandu led in terms of monetary value of Rs 10,527,834. The Nepse floor remained open for five working days, where the shares of Nepal Investment Bank, Himalayan Bank Ltd, Nepal SBI Bank, Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Bank of Kathmandu, Laxmi Bank Ltd, Machhapuchre Bank Ltd, Lumbini Bank Ltd and Credit Development were traded throughout the week.