Kathmandu, August 6:

With a sustained growth maintained by the commercial bank group, the Nepal Stock Exchange

(Nepse) index continued to show a bullish trend, with share trading entering a new height as its index crossed the 300-points mark. Share trading at the country’s sole secondary market is on a continuous bullish trend for the last couple of weeks. The index registered an increment of 9.09 points this week. According to figures released by the Nepse, the index opened at 296.78 points on Monday and closed at 305.87 on Friday, the last day for share transactions under the regular lot. Share trading had recorded a growth of 3.92 points last week. The commercial banks group’s healthy trading was little supported by manufacturing, insurance, finance and the development bank groups. The total weekly transaction value, however, decreased this week and stood at Rs 59,233,858 from 2,273 transactions of 182,224 share units. Last week’s total trading value was of Rs 139,299,608 through 2,178 transactions of 400,846 shares.

Out of the listed 69 companies for share trading, 61 companies saw their transaction this week. The commercial banks group — the largest scrip by volume at the Nepse floor — posted a healthy growth of 13.78 points. The group, which had gained more than seven points last week, opened at 322.47 points and closed up at 336.25 points on the closing day.

The manufacturing group, which had lost ground last week, registered a growth of 1.52 points. The group’s Nepse index that opened at 276.38 points on Monday, the first day of the trading closed at 277.90 points, on the last day. Likewise, the insurance group’s index climbed to 323.15 points on Friday from an opening of 322.92 points on Monday. The finance group and the development bank group also registered a growth in their respective index.

These groups’ index went up to 229.96 points and 250.77 points from the opening 228.70 points and 250.05 points respectively. Both the group had lost ground last week. The other, the trading and the hotel groups, however, remained constant this week at 325.56 points, 123.20 points and 179.54 points respectively.

Of the eight groups, the commercial banks group continued its domination by capturing the largest chunk of share at Nepse. The commercial banks group captured 80.30 per cent of the total share. The finance group came in behind, accounting for 13.32 per cent share. The development bank group had 3.45 per cent, while the insurance group contributed 2.41 per cent. The other group followed with a share of 0.38 per cent and the manufacturing group cornered a 0.08 per cent, while the hotel group holding a mere share of 0.05 per cent.

Lumbini Bank Ltd topped all companies in terms of number of transactions with 505 transactions during this week. Alpic Everest Finance Ltd came ahead in terms of the number of shares traded for the week. A total of 40,300 shares of the company were traded at Nepse floor this week. But, Bank of Kathmandu (BoK) stood first in terms of monetary value at Rs 6,798,098. The Nepse floor remained open for five working days this week, where shares of Nabil Bank Ltd, Nepal Investment Bank Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Ltd, Himalayan Bank Ltd, Nepal SBI Bank Ltd, Nepal Bangladesh Bank Ltd, Everest Bank Ltd, Bank of Kathmandu, NIC Bank Ltd, Laxmi Bank Ltd, Kumari Bank Ltd, Lumbini Bank Ltd, NCC Bank Ltd and Credit Development Bank Ltd were traded.