Kathmandu, February 24:

After a brief recovery last week, stock market stumbled this week with fall in share prices of commercial and development banks. As a result, Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index dropped by 6.62 points.

The weekly trading report of Nepse shows that its index drop to 519.07 points on Thursday, down from 525.69 points on Sunday. The Nepse index had gained 2.67 points last week. The market analysts say that drop in index is a correction of ‘unscientific boom’ in the share prices of commercial banks, which in recent weeks have gone up dramatically.

The share trading at the country’s sole secondary market began with its index at 525.69 poi-nts on Sunday and continually dropped to 523.20 points and 520.46 points on the second and third days respectively and finally it closed at 519.07 points.

The weekly total turnover, however, increased in comparison to last week and stood at Rs 170.4 million with 4,16,639 unit shares having been traded through 2523 transactions this week. A total of 3,08,438 unit shares worth over Rs 162.20 million were traded through 2,968 transactions. Out of the total 78 listed companies for share trading, 69 companies saw their transactions this week.

Group-wise share trading data shows that the insurance group continued to register a huge growth, as its index rose by 26.11 points to close at 638.08 points. The group, which began its trading at 611.97, had a huge gain last week, too.

The finance group also registered a growth as its index rose by 4.41 points. Its index closed at 453.18 points, up from 448.77 points on Sunday. Likewise, the trading group’s index also increased by 4.28 points and closed at 152.79 points. The index of others group rose steadily by 1.15 points to 664.08 points from 662.93 points. The hotel group’s index registered a growth of 3.84 points. Its index closed at 207.81 points, up from 203.97 points on Sunday.

On the other hand, the leading scrip at the Nepse, commercial banks group suffered a heavy loss of 13.49 points, as its index plunged to 558.09 points from the opening 571.58 points on Sunday.

Likewise, the development banks group also suffered this week heavily as its index lost 6.03 points. Its index that stood at 532.02 points on Sunday dropped to 525.99 points on Thursday. Manufacturing group did not see any changes as none of its shares were transacted.

Despite a heavy loss, the commercial banks group continued its domination by capturing the largest share of the total trading. The group cornered 54.97 per cent of the total trading. The other group came second with 20.23 per cent and insurance group had 15.72 per cent share in the total trading. The finance group also had a 5.66 per cent share, while the development banks group had 3.36 per cent in the total trading.

Kumari Bank Ltd topped all in terms of turnover for the week as the bank’s transaction stood at Rs 36,933,514. However, Shikhar Insurance surpassed others by the number of transaction that stood at 987. National Hydro Power Company Ltd stood first for having the largest number of shares traded for the week.