Kathmandu, August 22

Downbeat investor sentiment weighed on the domestic share market for the second consecutive trading day, as the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index plunged by 39.31 points or 2.28 per cent to retreat below the 1,700-point threshold today.

“There is no specific reason for the fall, although looking at the market trend over the past 12 years, the benchmark index usually peaks between the months of mid-April to mid-August,” said Rabindra Bhattarai, a stock analyst adding current movement of the secondary market is in accordance with annual trend.

Opening at yesterday’s close of 1,722.43 points, the benhmark index was mostly southbound throughout the day before finally coming to rest at 1,683.12 points by the day’s closing.

Sensitive index dropped 8.25 points or 2.22 per cent to 363.76 points and float index also fell 2.91 points or 2.27 per cent to 125.01 points.

Apart from trading, which has remained constant at 202.79 points since June 28, all the remaining subgroups recorded losses today.

Hotels witnessed a biggest drop of 3.8 per cent or 83.56 points to land at 2,116.71 points. Share value of Soaltee fell by Rs 17 to Rs 396, Taragaon Regency was down Rs 20 to Rs 275 and Oriental shed nine rupees to close at Rs 566.

Trailing close behind, hydropower plunged by 3.64 per cent or 89.12 points to close at 2,358.25 points. Chilime’s stock price fell by Rs 30 to Rs 1,250, Sanima Mai’s by Rs 35 to Rs 920, among others.

Both insurance and others subgroups plunged by 2.66 per cent to rest at 8,097.19 points and 773.36 points, respectively.

Finance was down 2.49 per cent or 20.83 points to 815.62 points due to Citizen Investment Trust slumping by Rs 150 to Rs 4,580, Jebils down Rs 27 to Rs 281, among others.

Development banks also dropped 2.26 per cent or 40.63 points to 1,754.14 points. Stockholders of Deprosc saw their share value dive by Rs 160 to Rs 2,790, Swarojgar took a beating of Rs 109 to Rs 2,786, and Nagbeli lost Rs 50 to Rs 4,200.

Banking, the subgroup with highest weightage on the benchmark index, fell 2.02 per cent or 32.86 points to 1,590.66 points. This was on the back of commercial banks like Standard Chartered dropping Rs 96 to Rs 3,206, Everest down Rs 65 to Rs 3,135, among others.

Manufacturing fell 1.17 per cent or to 2,473.20 points.

Of the 144 companies whose shares changed hands today, only 11 companies did not land in the red. Among the aforementioned 11 firms, share value of Janata Bank Nepal (Promoter Share) and Progressive Finance remained steady.

Altogether 5,607 transactions of 1.19 million scrips had been undertaken today that amounted to Rs 861.94 million.