Positive political signs push Nepse index up
KATHMANDU, MAR 17:
The end of the political deadlock drove the stock market up this week — March 11 to 14.
The Nepse index increased by 9.38 points, as the formation of a new election government under the leadership of Chief Justice Khil Raj Regmi infused investors with confidence. However, the fear of further instability due to disagreements with minor parties led investors to book profit before share prices start plunging.
The market that had opened at 538.89 points on Monday afternoon reached 539.37 points by the time the market closed that day. The positive political development pushed the index up to 545.72 points on Wednesday. On Thursday, the index surged to 560 points in the first hour of trading but later due to profit booking by investors, it went down to 548.27 points by the end of the day.
The stock exchange’s trading floor observed trading of 2.32 million unit shares worth Rs 532.5 million of 101 companies in 5337 transactions. This week, transaction volume declined by 20.84 per cent in comparison to last week when shares worth Rs 672.6 million were traded, due to fewer trading days. This week, Nepse was open for trading for three days only.
Share trading of blue chip stocks belonging to class ‘A’ companies comprised of 64.06 per cent of total trading worth Rs 341.1 million, this week. The sensitive index, which measures the performance of blue chip stocks, also went up by 2.31 points. Likewise,the float index that shows the performance of actual shares traded also increased by 0.55 points to 38.03 points.
All the subgroups except for trading recorded gains.
The insurance subgroup was the biggest gainer of the week and earned 20.75 points. As insurance companies are going to issue rights and bonus shares to raise paid up capital before the fiscal end, investors are grabbing insurance stocks pushing their share prices up.
Commercial banks recorded a gain of 11.55 points as the share price of major banks surged. Others also registered a gain of 10.57 as Nepal Telecom earned Rs nine on the week’s trading. Hydropower earned 7.05 points.
Likewise, finance companies and development banks gained 1.62 points and 3.52 points, respectively. The trading subgroup lost 3.29 points this week.
This week, Kist Bank topped the charts in terms of transaction volume and number of shares traded with trading of 999,975 units worth Rs 153.68 million. Civil Bank was the forerunner in number of transactions with 658 transactions.
This week, the top five companies in terms of turnover were Kist Bank (Rs 153.68 million), Nepal Bangladesh Bank (Rs 40.38 million), Bank of Kathmandu (Rs 26.92 million), Chilime Hydropower Company (Rs 26.79 million) and Everest Bank (Rs 25.05 million).
This week, 6.9 million units of ordinary shares of Khandbari Development Bank and International Development Bank were listed at Nepse. Likewise more than 6.5 million units of bonus shares belonging to Nepal SBI Bank, Everest Bank and Garima Bikas Bank were also listed.
Source: THT
