The secondary market on Sunday leapt 79.47 points to close at 1,667.11 points, with a large number of investors attracted to purchase stocks of mainly the insurance companies following the sector’s regulator stepped up to increase the paid up capital of both life and non-life insurers.

After the market surged over 5 percent, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) imposed circuit breakers to shut the trading for the rest of the trading hours on the day.

Nepse enforced circuit breaker twice on the day. First time, the trading was suspended at 12:57 PM after the index rose 4 percent. The market that resumed its operation at 1:27 PM witnessed the whopping growth within five minutes of resuming operation, compelling the authority to close the transaction for rest of the day.  

Enforcing new insurance policy on Friday, the Insurance Board had asked the insurance companies to raise the paid up capital by up to fourfold.  As per the new provision, life insurance companies need to increase the capital to Rs2 billion from existing Rs500 million. Similarly, non-life insurers have to increase the paid up capital to Rs1 billion from existing Rs250 million.

The group’s index escalated by around 2,500 points in the last three weeks. On Sunday too, the index of the insurance companies rose 733.37 points to close at 8,584.36 points.

Of 29 insurance companies, index of 21 companies escalated. Rastriya Beema Company’s promoters’ shares gained 1,479 points, the largest of all, to close at 16,269 points. It was followed by general shares of the same company that added up 1,345 points to close at 14,795 points.