Nepse index down 17.70 points

Kathmandu, May 12

The country’s sole secondary market witnessed losses in the trading week between May 6 and 12, as the benchmark index dropped by 17.70 points or 1.29 per cent to 1,348.45 points.

Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index had opened at 1,366.15 points on Sunday and fell by 12.51 points to close at 1,353.64 points by the end of the first trading day. It further shed 8.27 points on Monday. The local bourse reversed course on Tuesday, rising by 15.65 points to land at 1,361.02 points. Thereafter it again shrank — by 4.87 points on Wednesday to settle at 1,356.15 points and by 7.70 points on Thursday, the last trading day of the week

“The market may drop to as low as 1,168 points, which was the lowest point witnessed on March 26,” said Prakash Rajhaure, an independent stock analyst. He stated that until the benchmark index crosses the threshold of 1,438 points, the market is likely to see a lot of fluctuations.

The sensitive and float indices also went down during the review week. The sensitive index, which measures the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, dropped by 3.70 points or 1.28 per cent to rest at 284.59 points. Similarly, the float index that measures the performance of shares

actually traded also went down by 1.21 points or 1.22 per cent to 97.45 points.

In the review period, all the subgroups landed in the red zone. The hotels subgroup lost more than three per cent, and trading and hydropower sub-indices also shrank by over two per cent. Meanwhile, the others, development banks, finance, insurance, manufacturing and banking subgroups went down by a little over one per cent. The microfinance subgroup was able to restrict its loss to below one per cent.

In the review week, the hotels subgroup saw some considerable loss, dropping by 70.98 points or 3.49 per cent to rest at 1,957.26 points.

Trading subgroup fell by 5.83 points or 2.86 per cent to 197.62 points and the hydropower sub-index dropped by 37.71 points or 2.21 per cent to land at 1,666.46 points.

Meanwhile, others sub-index went down by 12.58 points or 1.65 per cent to end the week at 746.22 points. Likewise, development banks sub-index also decreased by 23.46 points or 1.47 per cent to 1,571.1 points.

Similarly, finance sub-index was down by 9.02 points or 1.34 per cent to settle at 659.61 points and insurance subgroup shrank by 86.77 points or 1.22 per cent to close at 7,011.76 points. The manufacturing subgroup descended by 26.46 points or 1.14 per cent to 2,288.19 points and banking sub-index also went down by 13.09 points or 1.11 per cent to land at 1,157.96 points.

Meanwhile, the microfinance subgroup dipped by 14.72 points or 0.83 per cent to close the week at 1,742.93 points.

Altogether, 4.81 million shares of 181 companies worth Rs two billion were traded through 29,319 transactions during the week. The traded amount was 27.76 per cent higher than the total weekly turnover of the previous week, which was recorded at Rs 1.56 billion. In the past week, 3.24 million shares of 176 companies had changed hands through 18,483 transactions.

In terms of weekly turnover, Butwal Power Company was at the top with Rs 127.34 million. It was followed by Civil Bank with Rs 103.05 million, Nepal Life Insurance Company with Rs 92.1 million, National Life Insurance Company with

Rs 59.16 million and Nepal Bank with Rs 49.56 million.

In the review period, Butwal Power Company also had highest number of transactions at 3,935. And in terms of number of shares, Civil Bank was the leader with 638,000 shares of the bank changing hands.

NEW LISTINGS

COMPANY

TYPE

UNIT

Kabeli Development Bank

Rights

350,880

Kankai Development Bank

Bonus

290,000

Shree Investment and Finance Company

Rights

2,867,226

Source: Nepse