Nepse upbeat as shareholders try to cash in on dividends

KATHMANDU, Sep 23:

The expectation of dividends has driven a majority of investors to purchase shares which has led to the benchmark index sustaining at above 420 points throughout the week –– September 16 to 20. 

As almost half of the listed banks, major hydropower companies, development banks and finance companies have announced dividends from last fiscal year’s earnings, shareholders trying to cash in on the dividends before book closure are bidding higher for shares. The index earned 1.55 points this week. 

The market that opened at 418.90 points on Sunday afternoon reached 420.83 points by the end of the day. It further went up the next two days reaching 425.47 points by Tuesday. In the next two days, the index slid reaching 420.45 points by the end of the week.

This week, the market witnessed transactions of 3.52 million unit shares worth Rs 629.5 million of 125 companies in 7028 transactions. The transaction volume has increased by 70.17 per cent and the number of shares traded has gone up by about 30 times, in comparison to last week, especially, due to Machhapuchchhre Bank Ltd (MBL)’s share transactions. 

This week, MBL shares witnessed the highest transaction volume and number of shares traded with trading of 1.86 million unit shares worth Rs 158.4 million. Chilime Hydropower was the forerunner in terms of highest number of transactions with 578 transactions. 

Trading of blue chip stocks –– shares of class ‘A’ companies –– amounted to 43.59 per cent of the total trading amounting to Rs 274.4 million. The sensitive index that measures the performance of blue chip stocks gained 0.19 points. The indicator of the performance of actual shares traded –– float index –– lost 0.02 points to reach 31.44 points. 

Chilime Hydropower gained Rs 35 per unit share, and both Butwal Power Company and Arun Valley also were able to register gains pushing hydropower subgroup up by 23.31 points. Hotels gained 22.61 points due to Soaltee 

Hotel and Oriental Hotels. 

Others gained 5.87 points as Nepal Telecom gained Rs six per unit share. Commercial banks lost 0.63 points, while finance companies and development banks gained 0.96 points and 3.78 points, respectively. Insurance companies earned 7.84 points. Manufacturing subgroup lost 32.51 points as Unilever lost Rs 631 per unit share. 

The top five performers of the week were Machhapuchchhre Bank (Rs 158.39 million), Chilime Hydropower (Rs 91.10 million), Arun Valley Hydropower (Rs 42.17 million), Kist Bank (Rs 39.25 million) and Everest Bank (Rs 33.26 million).

Source: THT