WEEKLY SHARE UPDATE: Nepse index shows slowdown

Kathmandu, January 6:

Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index registered a loss of 2.10 points this week owing to a weak performance of active groups including commercial banks group. Market analysts have, however, termed the decline as a corrective measure as the share prices in the previous weeks had posted an unnatural growth.

Nepse, the country’s sole secondary market, started its trading at 514.42 points on Sunday and closed at 512.32 points on Thursday. According to a weekly trading report, the floor opened at 514.42 points on Sunday, which dropped to 512.72 points on Monday and 508.96 points on Tuesday and 505.25 points on Wednesday. However, it stabilised and closed at 512.31 points on Thursday.

The weekly turnover stood at Rs 182.93 million with 3,76,788 unit shares having been traded through 2,581 transactions during the week. A total of 5,84,594 unit shares worth over Rs 294.7 million were traded through 9,759 transactions. Out of the 62 listed companies for share trading, 55 companies saw their transactions this week.

The commercial banks group, which plays a decisive role, fell by 7.89 points this week. Its index closed at 574.13 points from opening 582.02 points. The group had suffered a loss last week, too.

The index of others group, which had suffered a heavy loss last week too, dropped by 16.81 points and settled at 673.59 points this week. The group began its trading at 690.40 points on Sunday.

On the other hand, insurance, finance and development banks groups saw handsome growths of 42.58 points, 10.12 points and 28.21 points respectively. The insurance group’s index posted 512.51 points from 469.93 points, while the index of the finance group rose to 339.77 points from the opening 329.65 points on Sunday. The index of development banks group closed at 513.14 points from the opening 494.93 points.

Albeit marginal, the manufacturing group also registered a growth and its index closed at 322.36 points from the opening 319.82 points on Sunday.

The Nepse indices of hotel and trading groups, however, remained constant at 187.47 points and 150.09 points throughout the week.

The commercial banks gro-up continued its domination by capturing the largest share in trading this week. The group captured 61.55 per cent of the total trading, while the finance group came second with 13.03 per cent and insurance group had 12.30 per cent share in total trading. The development banks group also had a 10.12 per cent share and the insurance group cornered 2.83 per cent of the total trading.

Sanima Development Bank topped all companies in terms of number of transaction with 1237 transactions, while the Samjhana Finance Ltd stood first having the largest number of shares traded for the week. But, Kumari Bank Ltd outshone others in monetary value with its shares worth Rs 23,466,925 traded this week.

The floor opened for five days under a regular lot, where the shares of Nabil Bank, Nepal Investment Bank, Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Everest Bank, Kumari Bank, Siddhartha Bank, NCC Bank, Laxmi Bank, Sanima Development Bank, Chilime Hydropower Company, Nepal Life Insurance, Ace Finance and Nepal Merchant Banking and Finance were traded throughout the week.