Stock market records marginal gain

KATHMANDU, APR 08: 

The stock market index recorded a marginal gain this week –– April 1 to 7 –– after taking a plunge below 300 points. Some investors took advantage of the near rock bottom prices to purchase shares preventing the index from going further down.

The market, which had opened at 298.90 points on Sunday morning, inched a little up to 299.35 points by the end of the day. From the next day, the index crawled up gradually and by the end of the week the index had reached 302.44 points. 

Nepse’s trading floor observed 4638 transactions of 801,036 unit shares worth Rs 141.5 million belonging to 125 companies throughout the week in five trading days. Trading volume this week increased by a marginal 2.75 per cent as compared to that of last week. 

Share trading of class ‘A’ companies comprised 33.94 per cent of the total transactions with the trading of blue chip stocks worth Rs 48 million. The sensitive index, which measures the performance of class ‘A’ companies, gained 0.95 points reaching 74.96 points at the end of the week.

The float index, which is an indicator of the performance of actual shares traded, also went up by 0.28 points to 24.49 points. This week, subgroups such as hydropower, others, hotels, manufacturing and banking subgroup gained points while the rest ended up in the red. 

Hydropower earned 14.19 points as all of the listed hydro companies shook off their losing streak. Commercial banks, hotels and others earned five points, 4.7 points and 2.56 points, respectively. Trading subgroup was the biggest loser and went down by 11.82 points as Bishal Bazaar Company lost Rs 140 per unit share. Development banks, finance companies and insurance also dipped by 2.5 points, 1.11 points and 0.12 points, respectively. 

Nepal Investment Bank was the forerunner in terms of transaction amount and in terms of number of shares traded with a transaction of 290,720 unit shares worth Rs 52.1 million. Tinau Bikas Bank topped the charts in the number of transactions with 347 transactions. 

The top five performers of the week were Nepal Investment Bank (Rs 52.14 million), Everest Bank (Rs 11.66 million), Prime Commercial Bank (Rs 8.20 million), Prabhu Finance (Rs 5.11 million) and Chilime Hydropower Company (Rs 4.57 million).

Source: THT