Kathmandu, August 20:

Fall in prices of commercial banks groups’ shares forced the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index to register a drop of 3.88 points this week. According to the Nepse, the index opened at 300.94 points on Sunday, the opening day of the trading and went down to register 297.06 points on Thursday, the last day for share transactions under the regular lot. Last week also the Nepse has posted a fall in its index. The Nepse index of the commercial banks group, the largest scrip by volume at the Nepse floor, suffered a huge loss of over six points. The manufacturing and the development banks groups were the only gainers during this week, while the rest of the groups remained constant. Along with the fall in the index, total weekly transaction value also decreased and stood at Rs 34,262,478 from 2,545 transactions of 126,895 share units.

Last week’s total trading value was of Rs 41,132,028 through 3,272 transactions of 122,662 shares. Of the 71 listed companies for share trading, only 60 companies saw their transaction this week. The commercial banks group posted a loss of 6.59 points. The commercial banks group’s index that opened at 327.35 points on Sunday declined to close at 320.76 points on the closing day. The insurance group and the finance group’s index also closed down at 319.20 points and 229.11 points on Thursday from the opening 321.12 points and 230.70 points respectively. However, the manufacturing group registered a healthy growth of 4.66 points. The group, which had also gained last week, opened at 287.02 points and closed up at 291.68 points on Thursday The development banks group, which suffered a massive loss of about 27 points last week, rebounded with a 0.69 points gain.

The development banks group’s index opened at 225.69 points on Sunday and went up to 226.38 points on the closing day. The hotel, the trading and the other groups, however, remained constant this week at 180.11 points, 126.91 points and 319.20 points respectively.

All these groups had recorded growth last week. Of the eight listed groups at the floor, the commercial banks group continued its domination by capturing the largest chunk of share. It captured 63.75 per cent of the total share. The finance group came in behind, accounting for 18.28 per cent. The insurance group had 14.97 per cent, while the development bank group contributed 2.12 per cent. The manufacturing group followed with a share of 0.55 per cent and the hotel group cornered a 0.33 per cent. World Merchant Banking & Finance Company Ltd topped in terms of number of transaction with 646 transactions this week. Lumbini Bank Ltd, however, came ahead in terms of the number of shares and monetary volume traded during the week. A total of 24,875 shares of the bank were traded at Rs 4,477,530. The Nepse floor remained open for five working days, where the shares of Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Ltd, Himalayan Bank Ltd, Nepal Bangladesh Bank Ltd, Everest Bank Ltd, Bank of Kathmandu Ltd, NIC Bank Ltd, Machhapuchre Bank Ltd, Lumbini Bank Ltd, NCC Bank Ltd, Life Insurance Company Ltd, Nepal Merchant Banking and Finance and Nepal Development Bank Ltd were traded.