Kathmandu, April 6

The country’s sole secondary market continued with its upward trend in the trading week between March 31 and April 4 as commercial banks started publishing their unaudited balance sheets for the first eight months of the current fiscal that has revealed growing profit margins of those banks that published their data.

As a result, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index continued rising for the third straight week, going up by 1.80 per cent or 20.67 points.

“The balance sheets that some commercial banks have published are positive and it is likely that they will be in profit and distribute dividends at the end of the fiscal going by the published data,” said Uttam Aryal, chairman of Investors Association of Nepal, adding that this is the major reason why the stock market has seen an upsurge.

Moreover, the market also increased due to the Nepal Investment Summit that the government organised last week to attract foreign investment in the country.

“The government has created a better environment to attract investors than in the past by amending various laws related to foreign investment that is being reflected in the share market at present,” he added.

However, Aryal mentioned that the major problem that share investors are still facing is lack of funds from banks and financial institutions to invest in the secondary market.

Similar to the benchmark index, the sensitive index also went up by 2.09 per cent or 5.09 points to 248.57 points and float index also increased by 2.20 per cent or 1.84 points to 85.18 points.

In the review period, weekly turnover increased by 46.28 per cent as compared to the previous week to Rs 2.08 billion. In the previous week the market witnessed turnover of Rs 1.42 billion. Likewise, the daily average turnover also went up by Rs 417.92 million, which is an increment of 46.28 per cent in comparison to the previous week when it stood at Rs 285.7 million.

The secondary market had opened at 1,144.53 points on Sunday and inched down by 0.97 point by the end of the trading day. However, it reversed course and went up by 6.19 points on Monday. The market continued to soar, rising by 14.07 points on Tuesday and 2.02 points on Wednesday. However, on Thursday, the secondary bourse inched down by 0.64 point to close the week at 1,165.2 points.

In the review week, banking, manufacturing, development banks, hotels, others and finance subgroups landed in the green zone. Meanwhile, the trading sub-index did not witness any transaction and stood at 244.89 points.

The banking sub-index led the pack of gainers, soaring by 3.58 per cent or 35.51 points to 1,024.79 points. This was due to the share price of Everest Bank rising by Rs 38 to Rs 596.

The manufacturing sub-index too went up by 1.87 per cent or 37.71 points to rest at 2,052.36 points with the share price of Unilever Nepal increasing by Rs 321 to Rs 19,700.

Similarly, the development banks subgroup expanded by 0.69 per cent or 10.11 points to land at 1,461.79 points and hotels sub-index rose by 0.67 per cent or 11.67 points to 1,734.19 points.

Likewise, the others sub-index ascended by 0.18 per cent or 1.32 points to rest at 708.04 points and the finance subgroup inched up by 0.10 per cent or 0.66 point to rest at 615.9 points.

Meanwhile, microfinance subgroup was the biggest loser in the week and went down by 0.88 per cent or 12.29 points to 1,372.33 points. The life insurance sub-index also decreased by 0.60 per cent or 35.78 points to land at 5,885.19 points.

Moreover, the hydropower subgroup descended by 0.52 per cent or 6.11 points to 1,152.75 points and non-life insurance sub-index dipped by 0.50 per cent or 27.28 points to land at 5,357.86 points.

In the review week, NIC Asia Bank was the leader in terms of weekly turnover with Rs 160.4 million. It was followed by NCC Bank with Rs 115.9 million, Prabhu Bank with Rs 84.8 million, NMB Bank with Rs 82.9 million and Nepal Bank with Rs 77.08 million.

In terms of weekly trading volume, NCC Bank took the lead with 528,000 of its shares changing hands. Civil Bank with 380,000 shares, NIC Asia with 376,000 shares, Prabhu Bank with 349,000 shares and Nepal Bangladesh Bank with 284,000 shares were the other top firms to record high trading volume.

Meanwhile, Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower topped the chart in terms of number of transactions — 2,682. It was followed by Asha Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha with 1,429, NIC Asia Bank with 1,405, Shivam Cements with 1,386 and NMB Bank with 1,012 transactions.