Share market hit with technical faults
KATHMANDU, May 20:
The positive political development of last week did not spill over to the share market as the stock exchange struggled with technical difficulties throughout the week –– May 13 to 17.
The index gained a mere 1.3 per cent –– that is 4.97 points –– on the week’s trading. Transaction volume shrunk by 43 per cent as the stock market’s operation was hindered by technical glitches in the trading system and due to operations of circuit breakers that came into action when the Nepse index swung too high or too low.
The connection problem with Nepse’s server caused difficulties for brokers to place their clients’ orders affecting the stock price and transaction volume.
Last week, major political parties agreed on the number of states for the soon to be designed federal Nepal –– an issue that had been a bone of contention among the parties for a long time. A month ago, a similar resolution regarding the integration of combatants had propelled the recent rally in the market. However, Nepse did not see any such repeat performance this time.
As brokers struggled with the intranet connection with Nepse, the stock exchange witnessed trading worth Rs 369 million of 934,495 unit shares belonging to 104 companies in 5479 transaction. The trading of stocks belonging to class ‘A’ companies consisted of 77.99 per cent of the total transaction worth Rs 287.9 million.
The sensitive index which measures the performance of blue chip stocks went up by 1.09 points to 105.53 points. Likewise, the indicator of the performance of actual shares traded –– float index –– also went up by a marginal 0.34 points to 33.09 points.
This week all the subgroups were successful in registering gains. Hydropower gained the most as its index went up by 38.72 points, followed by insurance that gained 22.7 points. Due to Nepal Telecom’s gains, others registered a gain of 14.1 points.
Manufacturing also gained 6.54 points. Commercial banks, development banks and finance companies earned 1.34 points, 2.47 points and 1.5 points, respectively.
Bank of Kathmandu –– that has become the major puller at Nepse –– topped the charts in trading volume, transaction and number of shares traded with trading of 149,545 million unit shares worth Rs 96.9 million in 717 transactions.
The top five performers of the week were Bank of Kathmandu (Rs 96.99 million), Everest Bank (Rs 28.47 million), Chilime Hydropower (Rs 24.98 million, Standard Chartered Bank (Rs 20.52 million) and Nabil Bank (Rs 19.60 million).
This week, along with Bagmati Development Bank’s ordinary shares, 1.5 million units of bonus shares of three other financial institutions got listed at the stock exchange.
Source: THT
