Kathmandu, April 1

The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index fell by 24.05 points or 1.97 per cent to close at 1,196.24 points today, signifying that the government's white paper issued last Friday has not played any role in boosting investor morale in the country's sole secondary market.

Though Nepse had been on a downward spiral since the past two months, investors were expecting the white paper to address the secondary market and help the capital market rebound.

Share market analyst, Prakash Rajaure, attributed today's market plunge to the failure of the government's white paper to address the continuing slide in the secondary market. “The finance minister's comment on the capital market through the white paper that it is not sustainable has hit investors' sentiment who were already under pressure to sell stocks due to the hike in interest rates by banks and financial institutions,” he added.

The market had opened at 1,220.68 points today, which is the first day of the trading week, and kept falling throughout the day with slight fluctuations.

The sensitive index, which gauges the performance of class ‘A' stocks, took a dive of 1.99 per cent or 5.19 points to 255.69 points. Likewise, float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded also plummeted by 2.03 per cent or 1.79 points to rest at 86.19 points.

All the sub-indices landed in the red zone today. The insurance sector witnessed the largest fall today as the insurance sub-group plunged by 2.67 per cent or 148.77 points to 5,420.58 points. Similarly, the development bank index went down by 2.48 per cent or 36.1 points to land at 1,422.40 points and the banking sub-group fell by two per cent or 22.01 points to 1,079.82 points.

Likewise, the hydropower sub-index also went down by 2.55 per cent or 37.14 points to close at 1,418.58 points. While the hotels sub-index tumbled by 1.53 per cent or 27.29 points to 1,758.98 points, the microfinance sub-index plunged by 1.96 per cent or 26.24 points to close at 1,313.99 points.

The finance sub-group and manufacturing sub-index also dropped by 1.2 per cent or 7.71 points to 636.32 points and 0.69 per cent or 15 points to 2,147.99 points, respectively. The others sub-group fell by 0.84 per cent or 5.67 points to 671.87 points.