Nepse index plunges by 64.55 points

Kathmandu, November 27

The downbeat investor sentiment that has weighed on the domestic share market since the last three consecutive weeks continued in the first trading day of this week too as the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index plunged by 64.55 points or 4.21 per cent to retreat below the 1,500-point threshold today.

There has been selling pressure in the stock market as investors have been attracted towards the higher interest rates on deposits being offered by banks and financial institutions. On the other hand, demonetisation of INR 500 and INR 1,000 notes has also put pressure on those investors holding high amount of such currency to sell shares due to cash crunch to run their day to day business, according to stock market analysts.

Largely, the movement of the stock market is directly linked with the capital increment plan of the banks and financial institutions. People who had invested in the stock of BFIs in expectation of bonus and rights share have begun selling shares of those BFIs that have not announced bonus and rights shares under their capital increment plan.

The market, which had closed at 1,534.03 points last week retreated to 1,469.48 points and all the sub-indices landed in the red zone today. Small and medium investors who are considered a major factor for the stability of the market have also felt threatened with the continued market trend, according to Bhattarai, a stock analyst.

The sensitive index, which gauges the performance of class ‘A’ stocks dropped by 14.32 points or 4.32 per cent to 1,469.48 points and the float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded fell by 4.82 points or 4.24 per cent to 108.93 points.

Insurance sub-group witnessed the biggest drop of 7.51 per cent or 562.94 points to land at 6,930.11 points followed by hotels. Hotels sub-index went down by 7.21 per cent to land at 1,879.47 points. Likewise, hydropower, development banks, banking, finance and others sub-indices dropped by 5.34 per cent, 4.16 per cent, 3.64 per cent, 3.55 per cent and 2.53 per cent to land at 1,849.5 points, 1,516.67 points, 725.83 points, 1,389.55 points and 734.32 points, respectively.

Altogether, 1.48 million scrips of 128 companies worth Rs 964.56 million changed hands through 6,382 transactions today.