Kathmandu, December 6:

It happens only in Nepal. A week after Securities Board of Nepal (Sebon) chairman Dr Chiranjivi Nepal put in his papers, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index gained 22.73 points to reach 754.91 points from last week’s closing of 732.18 points, giving a clue to long-suspected manipulation of the market. Under normal conditions, the market should plunged after the board chair went vacant.

All key market propellers, commercial banks, development banks, finance companies, hydropower companies gained, posting 741.85 points, 1137.28 points, 980.77 points and 950.23 points, respectively. Only the insurance company group ended in the red, shedding 11.78 points to tag at 759.57 points.

The sensitive index — the barometer of group-A companies — gained 3.92 points to climb to 198.48 points. The domination of group-A continued this week too as they contributed 77.30 per cent to the total amount transacted. The float index, calculated on the basis of real transactions, rose by 0.99 points to reach 73.17 points.

Bank of Kathmandu (with Rs 88.43 million), Siddhartha Bank (with Rs 44.48 million), Standard Chartered Bank Nepal (with Rs 31.60 million) and Sanima Bikas Bank (with Rs 27.92 million) and Nepal Investment Bank (with Rs 23.07 million) were top scorers.

The market wound up in red for three days in its five-day session. It opened in green on Sunday. Nepse gained 18.53 points that day and 15.05 points on Monday to rise to 761.67 points on Tuesday. However, it dipped on Wednesday and Thursday.

In terms of numbers of share units traded, Bank of Kathmandu topped the chart with 43,000-unit shares while in terms of number of transactions Prabhu Finance topped the chart with 421 transactions.

Government and other institutions’ bonds and debentures did not generate interest in the secondary market. Nepse did not witness any such transaction.

New chairman any day soon:

KATHMANDU: The Finance Ministry will appoint a new chairman of Sebon, a ministry source said. A retired bureaurocrat is tipped to take the post that went vacant when Dr Chiranjivi Nepal resigned citing ‘no seriousness’ on part of Finance Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai towards developing the capital market.

Meanwhile, the government also announced a vacancy for the post of Nepse general manager.

Incumbent general manager Rewat Bahadur Karki has got an extension after his tenure ended two months ago. Karki will stay on until a successor is named. — HNS