Share trading takes on festive mood

Kathmandu, September 23 :

With improvement in share prices of commercial banks, share trading at Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) has been able to sustain last week’s growth trend this week as

well. The Nepse index registered a growth of 4.50 points against a marginal gain of 1.14 points last week.

The weekly trading that began at 387.59 points on Sunday remained constant on the second day and climbed to 393.02 points on Tuesday. Trading closed at 393.39 points on Wednesday. However, it settled at 392.02 points on Thursday.

According to Nepse, a total of 125,007 units of shares worth over Rs 64.3 million were traded through 1,586 transactions this week, against last week’s trading of 210,841 shares from 2,087 transactions at Rs 74.9 million. Of the listed 69 companies for share trading, 60 companies saw transactions this week.

The weekly trading report shows that out of the eight groups, the two leading groups registered growth, while three groups remained constant and three lost ground.

The commercial banks group, the largest scrip by volume at Nepse, registered an impressive growth of 7.35 points. The Nepse index of the group opened at 432.81 points and went up to close at 440.16 points on Thursday.

The finance group, which had recorded a marginal growth last week, maintained a growth of 2.67 points, as its index closed up at 270.67 points on Thursday from the opening 268 points on Sunday.

On other hand, the other group continued to suffer losses, losing 3.73 points. The group’s index closed down at 416.20 points on Thursday from an opening of 419.93 points on Sunday.

Likewise, the insurance and development banks groups lost by 0.60 point and 0.44 point, respectively. The trading of the insurance group began at 398.93 points and closed at 398.33 points on the last day, while the development bank group settled at 314.47 points on Thursday. Earlier the group opened at 314.91 points on Sunday.

The manufacturing, trading and the hotel groups, meanwhile saw no change in their index and remained constant at 314.69 points, 150.72 points and 180.96 points, respectively throughout the week.

The commercial banks group continued to dominate the Nepse floor by capturing a lion’s share. The group cornered 85.82 per cent of the total trading. The other group followed it and stood second with 4.54 per cent, while the finance group held 3.76 per cent.

The insurance group cornered 2.87 per cent and the development bank group had 2.59 per cent of the total transactions. The manufacturing group had a 0.21 per cent, while the trading group had a mere 0.20 per cent.

In terms of the maximum number of transactions, Prudential Insurance Co Ltd topped the race with 537 transactions. However, Kumari Bank Ltd outshone others to have the largest number of shares and monetary value traded for the week. A total of 22,805 unit shares of the bank were traded at Rs 10.57 million during the week.

The Nepse floor remained open for four days under the regular lot, where shares of Nabil Bank Ltd, Nepal Investment Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Nepal, Himalayan Bank Ltd, Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Everest Bank, Bank of Kathmandu, NIC Bank, Machhapuchhre Bank, Kumari Bank Ltd, Lumbini Bank, Siddhartha Bank and Development Credit Bank were traded throughout the week.