NEPSE records marginal gain to close at 1,090pts

Kathmandu November 8- The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) index rose marginally by 2.38 points to close at 1,090.68 points last week. Although the market was on the downward trend since the country faced blockade from India, the market made a slight recovery last week.

The secondary market that opened at 1,088.3 points showed fluctuating trend throughout the weekdays. The benchmark rose in every alternative trading day, with the stock market gaining 3.53 points on Monday and losing 5.96 points on Tuesday. NEPSE again made up 6.43 points on Wednesday before falling 1.62 points on Thursday.

 Of the nine trading groups, indices of five witnessed upward trend. The hydropower was the biggest gainer at 40.07 points on the benchmark index, followed by manufacturing, ‘others’, insurance and development banks.

Indices of three groups—hotels, commercial banks and finance companies—fell last week. Hotels suffered the biggest fall at five points. The index of ‘trading’ group remained stable at 207.97 points throughout the weekdays.

Similarly, the sensitive index that measures the performance of blue chips companies made a slight gain of 0.56 points to close at 235.78 points.

Along with NEPSE index, the transaction volume increased by 15.12 percent to Rs925.9 million. The number of traded shares also increased to 1,838,440 units from 1,327,280. Among individual companies, Nepal Bangladesh Bank led both in terms of the transaction volume and number of shares. The bank recorded a transaction worth Rs87.5 million through the trading of 147,000 units of its shares. Everest Bank, Nabil Bank (promoters’ shares), Chilime Hydropower and Sanima Bank completed the top five companies in terms of transaction amount.

Top five companies in terms of Company Turnover (in Rs millions) are Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Everest Bank,  Nabil Bank (promoters’ shares),  Chilime Hydropower &  Sanima Bank.  Sectors that went up are Hydropower Companies, Manufacturing, Others, Insurance Companies & Development Banks.  Sectors that went down are Hotels, Commercial Banks & Finance Companies.