Kathmandu, May 19:

Propelled by rising share prices of major scrips, stock trading at Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) continued to travel northward this week too.

The share trading closed higher, as its index posted a growth of 1.75 points and finished off at 518.55 points.

The rising trend has been continuing since mid-April and Nepse had gained over three points last week and about five points a week before that.

The weekly trading report shows that its index closed at 518.55 points on Thursday from the opening 516.80 points on Sunday, the opening day of the stock trading.

The Nepse floor opened for five days under a regular lot and the trading showed mixed results on the first three days with its index at 513.45 points on the second day, 512.38 points on the third day and 515.27 points the fourth day. However, it recovered to 518.55 points before closing on Thursday.

The weekly turnover also increased this week to Rs 152 million with 356,997 unit shares having been traded through 2,766 transactions during the week.

A total of 278,539 unit shares worth over Rs 138.6 million were traded through 2,398 transactions. Out of the total 77 listed companies for share trading, 71 companies saw their transactions this week.

The group wise share trading analysis shows that the major groups including commercial banks, others and finance groups continued to post growth.

The hotel group and development banks group also became the gainers this week.

Among the gainers, the commercial banks group, which is the largest scrip by volume at the Nepse, closed at 559.77 points from the opening 559.27 points. The group has maintained a steady growth for the last two months.

Likewise, the others group registered a sound growth of 16.89 points and closed at 713.14 points. The group had bounced back last week with a growth of over 25 points. The group

began its trading at 696.25 points on Sunday.

The hotel group also posted a growth of 1.52 points. The group opened at 235.27 points on Sunday and closed at 236.79 points.

The development banks group’s index closed at 442.95 points on Thursday from the opening 442.67 points.

The finance group bounced back this week with 4.85 points growth to close at 440.38 points. Last week’s loser, the group has opened its trading at 435.53 points on Sunday.

On the other hand, the insurance group continued to post loss, as its index dropped by

4.94 points. The group’s index opened at 548.03 points on Sunday and closed at 543.09 points on Thursday.

The manufacturing and the trading groups, however, remained constant at 329.42 points and 148.71 points respectively, as they had not a single trading throughout the week.

The commercial banks group continued to dominate the market, as it captured the majority of total share trading. The group cornered 59.85 per cent of the total trading, while the development banks group came second with 16.77 per cent.

The others group grabbed 12.97 per cent and the finance group had 5.47 per cent, while the insurance group bagged 3.63 per cent of the total share trading.

Siddhartha Bank Ltd topped all other companies in monetary value as its transactions stood at Rs 21,193,860. Shikhar Insurance outshone others for the highest number of transaction with 768 transactions for this week.

National Hydropower Company Ltd stood first in terms number of share units traded for the week.

A total of 94,020 unit shares of the company exchanged hands at the floor during this week’s trading.