Commercial banks save Nepse from plunging
KATHMANDU, DEC 09:
Commercial banks saved the market from plunging further, as the market went through bipolar swings this week –– December 2 to 6.
The benchmark index surged by 8.67 points in the week’s trading, reaching 497 points. The market acted unpredictably throughout the week as it hit a bottom at 481 points and scaled to 499 points in just two days.
Banks such as Standard Chartered Bank and Nabil Bank, among others, recorded substantial gains of Rs 70 and Rs 28, respectively, that pushed the banking subgroup up by 13.3 points.
Likewise, Unilever’s share price gained Rs 615 per share and Bottlers’ Nepal (Terai) earned Rs 40. Manufacturing gained a whopping 34.64 points in the week’s trading, making it the highest earning subgroup.
However, the remaining subgroups ended up losing points. Insurance lost 7.54 points, making it the biggest loser of the week. Hydropower went down by 4.37 points. Hotels lost 5.36 points, as Soaltee Hotel’s share price went down by more than Rs 60. Development banks and finance companies also lost 6.12 points and 0.96 points, respectively.
The market opened at 489 points on Sunday morning and dwindled to 483.82 points by the closing. The next day too the index slid, reaching 481.94 points.
However, in the next two days, index went up to 499.78 points by Wednesday. However, on the last trading day of the week the index once again slumped to 497.67 points.
In the five trading days, the market witnessed trading of 1.52 million unit shares worth Rs 515 million of 108 companies in 6320 transactions.
This is a 3.87 per cent decline in trading volume in comparison to the trading conducted last week.
Stock trading of class ‘A’ companies accounted for 63.76 per cent of total trading, amounting to Rs 32.3 million. The sensitive index that measures the performance of blue chip stocks gained 5.16 points. The indicator of the performance of actual shares traded — float index — slumped by 0.39 points to 35.19 points.
This week also Nepal Investment Bank was the forerunner in terms of trading volume with trading of shares worth Rs 67.5 million. Following the bank’s announcement of 30 per cent dividend, the bank’s shares are being traded a lot. In terms of number of shares traded, Nepal Bangladesh Bank was the forerunner with trading of 199,714 unit shares. Bank of Kathmandu topped in terms of transactions with 472 transactions.
The top five performers of the week were Nepal Investment Bank (Rs 67.59 million), Nepal Bangladesh Bank (Rs 48.41 million), Bank of Kathmandu (Rs 46.15 million), Chilime Hydropower (Rs 31.93 million) and Global IME Bank (Rs 27.09 million).
Nepal Bank’s 38 million units of ordinary shares have also been listed at Nepse.
Source: THT
