Benchmark index marginally down

Kathmandu, May 19

The country’s sole secondary market managed to limit its loss to 8.80 points or 0.65 per cent to 1,339.65 points in the trading week between May 13 and 17, owing to Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) rebounding in the second half of the week.

“The movement of the market in the coming days will depend on the government’s budget,” said Ambika Prasad Poudel, president of Nepal Investors’ Forum. “The government will be introducing its policy and programme on Monday but I think it will not include anything that will affect the stock market and we will have to wait for the budget to see which direction the share market will take,” he added.

Since Sunday was a public holiday as the country celebrated Bhoto Jatra, the stock market was open from Monday only. The benchmark index had opened at 1,348.45 points on Monday and dropped by 10.28 points to close at 1,338.17 points by the end of the day. The market was down on Tuesday by another 4.32 points.

The local bourse reversed course thereafter, gaining 4.16 points on Wednesday to land at 1,338.01 points. It went up marginally by 1.64 points on Thursday.

Meanwhile, sensitive index was down by 2.29 points or 0.8 per cent to rest at 282.3 points in the review week. Similarly, the float index also declined by 0.75 point or 0.76 per cent to 96.7 points.

In the review period, four subgroups witnessed gains while six subgroups landed in the red zone.

The trading, manufacturing and hotels subgroups saw gains of above one per cent and others sub-index saw gains of below one per cent. Meanwhile, microfinance, hydropower, insurance and banking sub-indices saw losses of below one per cent and development banks and finance subgroups witnessed losses of above one per cent.

In the review week, the finance subgroup led the pack of losers, dropping by 11.94 points or 1.81 per cent to rest at 647.67 points. Likewise, the development bank subgroup shed 25.88 points or 1.64 per cent to land at 1,545.22 points and banking sub-index dipped by 10.66 points or 0.92 per cent to land at 1,147.3 points.

Meanwhile, the insurance sub-index went down by 53.81 points or 0.76 per cent to end the week at 6,957.95 points. Similarly, hydropower sub-index also decreased by 10.72 points or 0.64 per cent to 1,655.74 points and microfinance sub-index fell by 9.39 points to 1,733.54 points.

Meanwhile, trading sub-index led the group of gainers, rising by 3.72 points or 1.88 per cent to settle at 201.34 points. Likewise, manufacturing subgroup ascended by 30.94 points or 1.35 per cent to close at 2,319.13 points. The hotels subgroup, meanwhile, surged by 24.75 points or 1.26 per cent to 1,982.01 points and others sub-index also went up by 5.25 points or 0.7 per cent to rest at 751.47 points.

Altogether, 2.32 million shares of 176 companies worth Rs 1.08 billion were traded through 14,026 transactions during the week. The traded amount was 45.96 per cent less than total weekly turnover of the previous week, which was recorded at
Rs two billion. In the previous week, 4.81 million shares of 181 firms had changed hands through 29,319 transactions.

In terms of weekly turnover, Siddhartha Bank was at the top with Rs 70.18 million. It was followed by Womi Microfinance Bittiya Sanstha with Rs 45.95 million, Siddhartha Insurance with Rs 30.04 million, Standard Chartered Bank with Rs 27.69 million and Nepal Life Insurance with Rs 27.44 million.

In the review period, Siddhartha Bank was also the leader in terms of number of shares changing hands with 211,000 of its shares being transacted. In terms of number of transactions, Nepal Investment Bank was the forerunner with 652 transactions.

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Source: Nepse

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