Kathmandu, February 9:

Bearish streak continues to grip Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse), as share trading plunged for fifth straight week, indicating that the overpriced market is in correction mode. Nepse lost 27.27 points this week.

According to Nepse, its index closed down at 750.86 points on Thursday from the opening 778.13 points on Sunday.

All leading groups except finance and hotels lost their beat, as the country’s sole secondary market is undergoing correction phase after it reached a peak one and half months ago. Among the major players, development banks suffered the most, while commercial banks, insurance and hydropower groups also lost this week, which led to a plunge in Nepse.

The total trading at the Nepse floor dropped by almost 50 per cent to Rs 151.06 million against last week’s trading of Rs 301.52 million. A total of 228,557 unit shares were traded through 1,968 transactions.

The Nepse index of the development banks plummeted by 365.89 points to land at 1094.10 points from the opening 1459.99 points. The Nepse indices of the commercial banks dropped to 736.69 points (-17.89 points), insurance to 808.48 points (-7.79 points) and hydropower group to 1136.49 points (-3.97 points) from Sunday to Thursday.

The finance companies registered a 10.31 points growth and closed at 930.22 points on Thursday from the opening 919.91 points, while hotel groups edged higher at 413.56 points.

Nepse witnessed a mixed trading this week, as its index dropped to 752.30 points on the second day and further worsened by a whopping loss of 43.57 points to land 708.73 points on the third day. However, it improved on the fourth day with a gain of 14.81 points and the market closed at 750.86 points on the last day of trading.

In terms of monetary value, Nepal SBI Bank, National Hydropower Company, Butwal Power Company, Bank of Kathmandu, and Machhapuchhre Bank are the gainers for this week.

Standard Chartered Bank Nepal topped the race in terms of monetary value with Rs 18.1 million. In terms of number of shares traded, National Hydropower Company topped the race with 65,000 units of shares having exchanged hands. However, in terms of number of transaction, Gurkha Development Bank topped the race with 279 transactions. Shares of 60 listed companies were traded this week, while the government bonds and debentures saw nil trading this week, too.

A total 900,000 units of bonus shares of Siddhartha Bank Ltd were listed at Nepse for trading from this week.