Kathmandu, August 27:

Continuous fall in share prices of commercial banks has yet another week resulted in sluggish growth of stock trading, at the country’s sole secondary market — Nepal Stock Exchange. The Nepse index dropped by 1.87 points this week. The bearish trend at the Nepse floor has started two weeks ago. According to the Nepse, the index opened at 295.45 points on Sunday and went down to post 297.06 points on Thursday, the last day of the trading. According to group-wise analysis, the commercial banks group suffered yet another huge loss of over three

points this week. The manufacturing, trading, insurance and finance groups, however, managed a marginal growth. Although the Nepse index dropped this week, the total weekly transaction value has increased and stood at Rs 42,833,388 from 2,177 transactions of 133,572 share units. Last week’s total trading value was of Rs 34,262,478 through 2,545 transactions of 126,895 shares. Of the listed 69 companies for share trading, 59 companies saw their transaction this week.

The commercial banks group, the largest scrip by volume at the floor suffered a loss of 3.45 points. The group’s index that opened at 318.21 points on Sunday declined to close at 314.76 points on the closing day. The group has suffered over six points last week. The hotel and the development banks groups’ index closed down at 179.11 points and 226.34 points on Thursday from the opening 180.11 points and 226.74 points respectively. However, the manufacturing group registered a marginal growth as its index climbed up to 291.70 points from the opening 291.68 points on Sunday. The trading group, which had remained constant last week, posted a robust growth of 8.04 points. The group’s index that opened at 126.91 points on Sunday registered 134.95 points on the closing day.

The finance and the insurance group also posted a marginal growth in their respective index. These groups’ index went up to close at 229.58 points and 319.85 points from the opening 229.37 points and 317.91 points respectively. The other group, however, remained constant this week at 335.09 points. Of the listed eight groups at Nepse floor, the commercial banks group continued its domination by capturing the largest chunk of share at Nepse. It captured 85.55 per cent of the total share trading. The finance group came in behind, accounting for 6.75 per cent. The insurance group stood third with 3.71 per cent, while the development bank group contributed 1.69 per cent. The hotel group followed with a share of 0.69 per cent.

Lumbini Bank Ltd topped in terms of number of transaction with 380 transactions this week. Bank of Kathmandu, however, came ahead in terms of the number of shares and monetary volume traded for the week. A total of 41,352 shares of the bank were traded at Rs 17,549,874. The floor remained open for five working days, where the shares of Standard Chartered Bank Nepal, Himalayan Bank Ltd, Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Everest Bank Ltd, Bank of Kathmandu, NIC Bank Ltd, Machhapuchre Bank Ltd, Lumbini Bank Ltd, NCC Bank Ltd, Life Insurance Company, Prudential Insurance, Alpic Finance, Nepal Development Bank, Credit Development Bank and Paschimanchal Development Bank were traded.