Kathmandu, June 29

The country’s sole secondary market remained bearish for the fourth consecutive week, with the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index dropping by 0.57 per cent or 7.21 points in the trading period between June 23 and 27.

Uttam Aryal, chairman of Investors Association of Nepal, said that policy uncertainty in the financial market amid the crunch of cash flow has discouraged investors to make investment in recent weeks.

“The market is already facing shortage of enough cash. Similarly, the ongoing discussions on merger and acquisition policy of banks has also created some sort of fear among investors,” said Aryal.

Starting the week at 1,264.36 points, the benchmark index had fallen by 10.01 points by the day’s closing. Nepse recovered some of the loss over the next two days, rising by 5.76 points on Monday and adding 0.96 point on Tuesday. However, the local bourse remained southbound for the remainder of the week — dropping by 2.78 points on Wednesday and shedding 1.14 points on Thursday to close the week’s trading at 1,257.16 points.

The sensitive index, which tracks the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, slipped by 0.16 per cent or 0.44 point to 271.17 points. Float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded also dipped by 0.58 per cent or 0.54 point to 92.25 points.

Nevertheless, the total trading volume, turnover and the number of transactions all improved in the review period.

The share market witnessed 7.66 million shares changing hands through 31,605 transactions that amounted to Rs 2.52 billion in the trading week.

The traded amount was 31.75 per cent higher than the preceding week when 28,236 transactions of 6.43 million shares worth Rs 1.91 billion had been undertaken.

In the review week, only finance, hotels and others subgroups managed to land in the green zone.

Finance inched up 0.54 per cent or 3.32 points to rest at 620.79 points.

Hotels added 0.45 per cent or 9.30 points to 2,087.91 points.

Even as Taragon Regency’s share value fell by 4.04 per cent to Rs 309, the subgroup was buoyed by Soaltee’s going up 1.30 per cent to Rs 234 and Oriental’s share price remaining steady at Rs 636.

Others subgroup rose 0.34 per cent or 2.49 points to 728.29 points, mostly on the back of Nepal Telecom’s share price gaining 0.86 per cent to Rs 703.

Meanwhile, non-life insurance subgroup took the biggest plunge of 3.6 per cent or 188.44 points to land at 5,050.71 points.

The sub-index was weighed down by the likes of Premier plummeting by 2.87 per cent to Rs 980 and Lumbini General dropping by 3.83 per cent to Rs 427.

Life insurance sub-index descended by 1.76 per cent or 107.91 points to 6,004 points.

Shareholders of Shikhar Life witnessed the value of their stocks take a dive of 8.19 per cent to Rs 740 and those of Nepal Life saw their stocks drop by 1.66 per cent to Rs 887, among others.

The losses of the remaining seven subgroups were limited to below one per cent.

Hydropower subgroup slipped 0.96 per cent or 11.53 points to 1,191.26 points; manufacturing was down 0.7 per cent or 18.15 points to 2,692.83 points; banking lost 0.32 per cent or 3.70 points to 1,132.22 points and the development banks sub-index shed 0.32 per cent or 5.17 points to land at 1,591.78 points.

Mutual funds landed at 9.61 points, down 0.1 per cent or 0.01 point; microfinance settled at 1,424.28 points after dipping by 0.04 per cent or 0.64 point and trading rested at 263.82 points, shedding 0.03 per cent or 0.08 point.

Himalayan Distillery was the leader in terms of weekly turnover in the review period with Rs 347.74 million. It was followed by Nepal Bank with Rs 158.82 million, Shivam Cements with Rs 129.39 million, Prabhu Bank with Rs 116.08 million and Siddhartha Bank with Rs 75.63 million.

Nepal Bank was the forerunner with regard to trading volume, with 483,000 of its shares changing hands. Prabhu Bank with 434,000; Civil Bank (Promoter Share) with 301,000; Nepal Credit and Commerce Bank with 236,000; and Siddhartha Bank with 236,000 shares rounded up the top five in this category.

In terms of number of transactions, Ganapati Microfinance Bittiya Sanstha topped the chart with 2,273 transactions. Gurans Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha was second with 1,982 transactions; Nepal Agro Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha was third with 1,127 transactions; Shivam Cements was fourth with 1,057 transactions and Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower was fifth with 1,055 transactions.