Kathmandu, May 6

Developments in the political front and speculations about the upcoming budget of fiscal 2017-18 weighed in the domestic share market, with Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index clocking a week-on-week loss of 17.44 points or 1.04 per cent to rest at 1,653.18 points between April 30 and May 4.

Starting the week at 1,670.62 points, the benchmark index had plunged by 19.84 points by the day’s closing. While the country’s sole secondary market remained closed on Monday as the country observed May Day, Nepse index witnessed slight recovery over next two days — adding 7.55 points on Tuesday and inching up 4.05 points on Wednesday. On Thursday, however, the local bourse saw some of the gains wiped out as Nepse dropped by 9.2 points.

The sensitive index fell by 3.66 points or 1.02 per cent to 353.55 points. The float index also shed 1.39 points or 1.12 per cent to land at 122.63 points.

In total, 5.38 million shares of 154 companies that amounted to Rs 3.40 billion were traded through 27,706 transactions during the week. The traded amount was 40.26 per cent lower than the preceding week. It has to be noted, however, that the market had remained open for normal five trading days in the past week. Back then, 41,898 transactions of 8.20 million shares of 156 firms that totalled Rs 5.69 billion had been undertaken.

Besides trading, which remained constant at 211.35 points, a majority of subgroups landed in red. Manufacturing and others were the only two subgroups to manage to land in the green territory. Manufacturing rose by 22.66 points or 1.04 per cent to 2,190.03 points and others inched up 2.6 points or 0.38 per cent to 677.64 points.

Hotels saw the biggest drop among the subgroups as the sub-index descended by 2.33 per cent to 2,191.72 points. Even as share value of Oriental surged by 7.41 per cent to Rs 725 and Taragaon Regency rose by 0.78 per cent to Rs 257, the subgroup was weighed down as Soaltee slumped by 5.22 per cent to Rs 345.

Finance reversed some of previous week’s gain of 3.15 per cent with a drop of 14.85 points or 1.89 per cent to land at 770.31 points in the week, primarily due to Citizen Investment Trust losing 1.36 per cent to Rs 3,989.

After leading the gainers with a surge of 4.17 per cent in past week, selling pressure weighed on insurance subgroup this time around. The sub-index dropped by 166.04 points or 1.83 per cent to 8,884.82 points.

Similarly, adding to the previous week’s dip of 0.64 per cent, the banking subgroup retreated by 15.78 points or 1.03 per cent to 1,510.18 points. Share price of commercial banks like Nabil went down by 1.26 per cent to Rs 1,560 and Everest dropped by 2.23 per cent to Rs 1,843, among others.

Development banks and hydropower managed to limit losses to below one per cent. Development banks fell by 16.32 points or 0.82 per cent to 1,962.66 points and hydropower dipped by  16.15 points or 0.80 per cent to 1,993.34 points.

Meanwhile, Nepal Life Insurance topped the chart in terms of turnover with Rs 168.01 million, followed by Nepal SBI Bank with Rs 124.71 million, Prabhu Bank with Rs 108.93 million, Sanima Mai Hydropower with Rs 101.44 million and Prime Life Insurance with Rs 96.89 million.

Prabhu Bank retained its top position in terms of trading volume, with 256,000 of its shares changing hands. Likewise, Arun Kabeli Power was forerunner in the review period like in the past week with regard to most number of transactions — 2,169.