Nepse surges by over 5pc

Kathmandu, July 26

Trading at Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) lasted for only one-and-a-half hours today as the benchmark index increased by over five per cent. Nepse imposed the circuit breaker twice today.

The first circuit breaker was applied when the index rose by three per cent in the first trading hour. Trading was halted for half an hour. The market reopened at 1:30pm and again the trading was closed after the operator applied the circuit breaker for the second time at 2pm as the index jumped by over five per cent within half an hour.

The stock market opens at 12 noon and trading continues for three hours till 3pm. During today’s trading Nepse index surged by 50.57 points or 5.04 per cent to end the day at 1053.95 points.

Today’s bull run at the stock market was led by the banking sector. The banking sub index increased by 60.67 points or 6.79 per cent because of Nepal Rastra Bank’s latest instruction to commercial banks to raise the paid-up capital from the current Rs two billion to Rs eight billion.

Today’s top-five gainers were also commercial banks namely, Citizens Bank International, NIC Asia Bank, NCC Bank, Everest Bank and Himalayan Bank as their stock prices rose by 10 per cent.