Secondary market witnesses slight gain

Kathmandu, July 21

The relief to share investors after the pressure of paying interest on margin loans for last fiscal subsided resulted in
Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index edging up by 0.12 per cent or 1.41 points in the trading week between July 15 and 19.

“In the previous month, share investors were under pressure due to margin calls from banks and financial institutions. Now the pressure has eased after the book closure,” said Ambika Prasad Poudel, chairman of Nepal Investors Forum, adding that investors were now a bit free to start investing in stocks.

Investors had been dismayed that the Monetary Policy 2018-19 unveiled on July 11 had failed to address the current issues of the stock market. Hence, contrary to earlier expectations, the stock market had continued in a bearish trend.

“Banks and financial institutions will start publishing their unaudited balance sheets of last fiscal year soon and we expect the liquidity problem to have been solved,” said Poudel. “If the reports are favourable, the stock market will gather steam.”

The benchmark index, which had opened at 1,191.98 points on Sunday, had gained 8.11 points by the time of closing to 1,200.09 points. Similarly, it rose by 12.27 points on Monday to 1,212.36 points. However, the next day it dropped by 8.05 points to land at 1,204.31 points. The local bourse continued with its downward trend, falling by 5.54 points to 1,198.77 points on Wednesday and by 5.38 points on Thursday to close the week at 1,193.39 points.

Meanwhile, the sensitive index went up by 0.14 per cent or 0.37 point to 251.42 points and the float index also increased by 0.09 per cent or 0.08 point to 85.62 points.

In the review period, besides the insurance and microfinance subgroups, all the remaining eight subgroups witnessed gains.

The microfinance sub-index was the biggest loser of the week going down by 1.65 per cent or 26.30 points to rest at 1,561.61 points. Samata Microfinance Bittiya Sanstha’s share price declined by Rs 54 to Rs 1,350. Likewise, the insurance subgroup dropped by 0.65 per cent or 39.59 points to land at 5,969.35 points, with National Life Insurance Company’s share price descending by Rs 30 to Rs 770.

Meanwhile, hotels sub-index led the group of gainers, rising by 2.29 per cent or 40.66 points to land at 1,808.22 points. Share price of Soaltee increased by nine rupees to Rs 239.

The trading subgroup too saw an increment of 1.08 per cent or 2.11 points to 196.27 points. The finance subgroup went up by 0.86 per cent or 5.23 points to 609.59 points.

In the meantime, the development banks sub-index jumped 0.52 per cent or 7.40 points to rest at 1,409.26 points, with Jyoti Bikash Bank’s share price going up by six rupees to Rs 142. The banking sub-index too inched up by 0.31 per cent or 3.20 points to 1,012.86 points, which was due to Everest Bank’s share price rising by Rs 12 to Rs 672, among others.

Meanwhile, others subgroup rose by 0.25 per cent or 1.83 points to 710.49 points on the back of Nepal Telecom’s share price up three rupees to Rs 727.

The manufacturing sub-index expanded by 0.20 per cent or 4.65 points to land at 2,226.9 points because of Himalayan Distillery’s share price rising by Rs 20 to Rs 1,300. The hydropower sub-index also inched up by 0.05 per cent or 0.74 point to rest at 1,437.86 points.

Altogether, 4.75 million shares of 186 companies worth Rs 1.45 billion were traded through 15,128 transactions during the week. The traded amount was 31.32 per cent lower than the total weekly turnover of the previous week, which was recorded at Rs 2.11 billion. In the past week, 6.11 million shares of 191 companies had changed hands through 24,370 transactions.

In the review period, Prime Life Insurance (Promoter) took the lead in weekly turnover with Rs 358.01 million and also led in terms of trading volume with 1,252,000 units of its shares changing hands. In terms of number of transactions, Nabil Bank was at the top with 968 transactions.

Nabil Bank with Rs 131.83 million, Nabil Bank (Promoter) with Rs 43.82 million, Nepal Investment Bank with Rs 37.03 million and Nepal Insurance Company with Rs 29.77 million rounded up the top five firms in terms of weekly turnover.

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Source: Nepse