Kathmandu, August 12:

Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index has for the first time in its 14-year history crossed 700 points this week. After slowing down for two weeks, stock trading has bounced back with the index clic-king a sound double-digit growth of 20.59 points over the week.

The central bank’s warning has cooled the market and the Nepse had gained about eight points last week. However, this week country’s sole secondary market opened at 702.73 points creating a history on Sunday and closed at 723.32 points on Thursday. It touched a historic high on Wednesday and posted 725.31 points but it dropped to 723.32 points on the closing day.

Despite repeated warnings from the regulatory authority and analysts, stock market overheated mainly due to ‘rumours’ and ‘manipulation’, particularly in the share prices of some of the commercial banks which has negative net-worth and suspicious Profit Earning (PE) ratio.

The share prices of the commercial banks, companies under hydropower, finance and development banks groups showed impressive performance this week. The companies under hotel and insurance group have also gained marginally.

The weekly turnover has also increased significantly this week to Rs 463.3 million with 643,181 unit shares having been traded through 4,487 transactions, against last week’s figure of Rs 301 million through the trading of 645,132 shares. Out of the total 105 listed companies for share trading, 79 companies saw their transactions this week.

The commercial banks group, which is the largest scrip by volume, posted a a growth of 18.41 points. The group’s index went up to 810.09 points from the opening 791.68 points.

The hydropower group continued to register an impressive growth, as it clicked a three

digit gain of 105.08 points this week to close at 1143.43 points. The group, which had gained double-digit growth, last week, began its trading at 1038.35 points on Sunday.