Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) jumped 25.88 points last week to close at 1,377.42 points.

The market that opened at 1,351.54 points on Sunday posted gains throughout the week. The week’s biggest single-day gain came on Tuesday when the benchmark index rose 12.73 points.

Stockbrokers attributed the surge to growing investor attraction towards commercial bank shares. Narendra Raj Sijapati, managing director of Kalika Securities, said the demand commercial bank shares jumped on expectations of good third-quarter results. 

Of nine trading groups, four saw their indices rise. The insurance group (up 117.56 points) was the week’s top gainer, followed by manufacturing, commercial banks, development banks, others and finance companies. Hydropower and hotels lost 19.27 points and 9.77 points, respectively. The trading group was stable at 201.38 points.

The sensitive index that measures the performance of ‘A’ class companies also increased 5.92 points to close at 297.38 points. Despite the surge in the index, the transaction volume plunged 46.16 percent to Rs2.08 billion. The number of traded shares too declined to 3,406,630 units from 6,806,661.

Citizens Bank International posted the highest individual transaction of Rs131.14 million. It was followed by Bangladesh Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Nepal Bank, and Nabil Bank.

With 326,000 units of its shares changing hands, Nabil Balance Fund topped in terms of the number of shares traded.