Kathmandu, May 28

While bullish investor sentiment caused Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index to advance by double digits in the beginning of the week, profit-booking in mid-week resulted in capping weekly gain to 25.77 points or 1.71 per cent in trading week of May 22 to 26.

Starting at the previous week’s closing of 1,499.32 points, the benchmark index on Sunday had surged by 10.07 points to breach the threshold of 1,500 points by the day’s closing. Nepse index continued in the upward trajectory on Monday and Tuesday, surging by 14.68 points and 20.58 points, respectively — setting a new record for the three consecutive days.

However, owing to profit-booking, the secondary marked witnessed a slight correction as Nepse erased almost all the gain of the previous day on Wednesday, slumping by 20.53 points. On Thursday, the local bourse inched up 0.97 point to rest at 1,525.09 points for the week.

In total, 14.67 million shares of 147 companies that amounted to Rs 7.15 billion were traded through 28,880 transactions in the week. The traded amount was a whopping 66.75 per cent higher than the preceding week when 20,545 transactions of 6.96 million scrips of 153 firms worth Rs 4.29 billion had been undertaken.

The sensitive index, which gauges the performance of class ‘A’ stocks, rose 1.71 per cent to land at 329.98 points. Likewise, the float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded also gained 1.77 per cent to rest at 111.18 points during the review period.

Whereas trading remained constant at 201.38 points, similar to the previous week, hotels, manufacturing and others subgroups landed in the red.

Similar to the earlier week, insurance subgroup led the pack of gainers, posting an impressive growth of 7.85 per cent to 7,733.09 points. This was on the back of share value of insurance companies like Nepal Life surging by Rs 429 to Rs 3,874; Shikhar Insurance by Rs 283 to Rs 2,699; Sagarmatha Insurance by Rs 210 to Rs 1,799 and Life Insurance Co Nepal by Rs 100 to Rs 3,400, among others.

Adding to the previous week’s ascent of 1.42 per cent, development banks gained 4.31 per cent to 1,540.97 points. Share price of Chimmek went up by Rs 170 to Rs 2,150 and Nirdhan Utthan by Rs 152 to Rs 2,142, to name a few.

The rest of the gainers only saw muted growth — hydropower up 0.65 per cent to 2,275.05 points; banking up 0.45 per cent to 1,416.58 points; and finance up 0.38 per cent to 731.04 points.

On the flip side, hotels plunged by 4.39 per cent to 1,866.02 points. The sub-index was weighed down by Soaltee’s share value dropping by Rs 19 to Rs 346, that of Taragaon Regency down Rs 16 to Rs 230 and Oriental down two rupees to Rs 514.

Similar to the past week, manufacturing subgroup continued southbound — down 2.92 per cent to 2,153.56 points, dragged down by Unilever Nepal’s stock price plunging by Rs 1,311 to Rs 31,421.

Because of Nepal Telecom’s stock price dropping by nine rupees to Rs 651, the others subgroup shed 1.36 per cent to rest at 764.81 points.

Meanwhile, Nepal Bangladesh Bank took lead in terms of turnover with Rs 425.59 million, followed by Nepal Life Insurance with Rs 274.78 million, Shikhar Insurance with Rs 250.24 million, Himalayan General Insurance with Rs 246.21 million and Nepal Bank with Rs 237.36 million.

Siddhartha Equity Oriented Scheme was the forerunner in terms of number of shares traded, with 3.29 million of its scrips changing hands. Nepal Bangladesh Bank also topped the chart with regard to number of transactions — 1,531.