Kathmandu, March 17:

Following a heavy loss last week, stock trading this week headed towards stability, although Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index dropped by 2.96 points.

The stock market had lost over 18 points last week in an aftermath of Nepal Rastra Bank’s stringent measures on margin lending to correct the market anomaly. The market analysts say that the central bank’s move was a right on time to check the country’s sole secondary market from further erosion.

The stock market had not only registered a heavy fall, but also wiped off about six billion rupees in market capitalisation with its index below the 500-mark since mid-December 2006 since last two weeks.

The weekly trading report of Nepse shows that its index dropped to finish off at 493.88 points on Thursday, down from 496.64 points of Sunday. Before entering into a bear zone Nepse had lost about nine points two weeks ago.

The trading at Nepse began at 496.64 points on Sunday and saw a marginal improvement on the second day with its index at 500.72 points, which however, dropped to 500.12 points on the third day. It further went down to 494.06 points on the third day and closed at 493.88 points on the final day.

The weekly turnover stood at Rs 155.3 million with 331,001 unit shares having been traded through 3,373 transactions during the week. A total of 338,116 unit shares worth over Rs 169.6 million were traded through 4,275 transactions. Out of the total 79 listed companies for share trading, 74 companies saw transactions this week.

The group wise share trading data shows the manufacturing group maintained a steady growth of 1.03 points and closed at 347.07 points. The group opened at 346.04 points.

Hotel group, another gainer at Nepse, saw its index up by 10.66 points and closed at 233.84 from the opening 223.18 points on Sunday. Likewise, the finance group registered a marginal growth to finish off at 439.76 points. Last week’s loser, this group began trading at 439.55 points.

On the other hand, the leading scrips including commercial banks and insurance groups continued to suffer losses, which resulted in overall fall of Nepse. Among the losers, the commercial banks’ index dropped by 3.23 points to land at 520.33 points. The group, which had suffered a heavy loss last week, opened at 523.56 points on Sunday.

Among the losers, the insurance group incurred a heavy loss, as its index plummeted by 27.30 points and its index dipped to 608.31 points on Thursday from the opening 635.61 points.

The others group lost 6.40 points and closed down at 650.14 points. The group opened its trading on Sunday with its index at 656.54 points. The trading group, which had remained static for many weeks, also suffered a loss of 4.08 points and landed at 148.71 points from the opening 152.79 points. The development banks group, too, incurred a loss of 2.76 points to close at 481.09 points from the opening 483.85 points on Sunday.

Despite the loss, the commercial banks group continued its domination by capturing the largest chunk of the total share trading.