Kathmandu, February 14:

Investors in the secondary market this week earned in comparison to the earlier weeks as Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) gained 15.43 points to reach 671.49 points from last week’s closing of 656.06 points.

Despite huge primary issues of Rs 300 million each of two commercial banks that totalled Rs 600 million the secondary market this week performed satisfactorily.

The share market opened on a positive note on Sunday rising by 15.65 points to reach 671.71 points. But the sole secondary market shed 2.89 points to register 668.82 points on Monday. On Tuesday, Nepse again slipped by another 3.67 points to slide to 665.15 points.

On wednesday, the fourth day in the domestic market, the index further dipped by 1.63 points to drop to 663.52 points. However, on Thursday, the last day of the trading in the domestic market, Nepse bounced back by 7.97 points to close the weekly market at 671.49 points.

The market closed in the green on two days of the five-day session and the transaction amount decreased by 16.22 per cent to go down to Rs 228.77 million from last week’s Rs 273.08 million.

Last week, it had increased by 36.62 per cent to go up to Rs 273.08 million.

This week, 79 listed companies saw their shares traded as against 78 last week.

The sensitive index — a barometer of 78 Group-A companies - gained 5.90 points to surge to 174.35 points from last week’s 168.45 points. Similarly, the float index — calculated on the basis of real transactions — gained 1.74 points to 63.33 points from last week’s closing of 61.59 points.

This week’s top performers were Infrastructure Development Bank (with Rs 20.99 million), Bank of Kathmandu (with Rs 16.80 million), Standard Chartered Bank (with Rs 14.30 million), Nabil Bank (with Rs 13.66 million) and Nepal Development and Employment Promotion Bank (with 10.07 million).

In terms of share units traded, Alpic Everest Finance topped the chart with 46,000-unit shares this week whereas in terms of number of transactions Infrastructure Development Bank topped the chart with 898 transactions.

Except commercial banks and hydropower companies groups, the insurance companies, finance companies and development banks groups lost this week.

Finance companies group’s investors lost heavily this week as the group lost a whopping 62.94 points to slide to 794.34 points from last week’s closing of 857.28 points. Similarly, development banks and insurance companies group lost 6.87 to go to 968.47 points and 1.54 points to go to 651.38 points.

Commercial banks group gained 30.13 points to rise to 649.62 points and hydropower group gained 26.65 points to rise to 848.94 points.